AKA: “Why You Are Going Broke“

From 1950s to 1980s America was a manufacturing powerhouse. After the terrible war, the manufacturing plants retooled and continued manufacturing consumer goods. A man could work one factory job and support a full family, buy a house, had great health care insurance, could take a vacation every year and retire with a strong pension. The American working class had the highest standard of living in the world at that time only compared to pre-war Germany, which had previously held that title before being destroyed by the war. During that time manufacturing made up 40% of GDP in America and produced 40% of profits in the U.S., while employing 30% of the workforce. Much of the workforce outside of manufacturing was also supporting by the strong wages of manufacturing workers, since they had more money to spend in their communities. 

During that period, in the 1950s and 1960s especially, most businesses such as small stores, restaurants, gas stations, cinemas, auto repair shops, plumbers (and so forth) were locally owned by members of the community, which means the money largely stayed and benefitted the communities directly. This was before the corporatization of America where more and more “local” businesses are either national corporate chains, or are owned by equity investors who are not local. That is the world baby boomers who were born after the war, and to a certain extent their children, grew up in. In spite of that generation’s inability to see it, that world no longer exists.

A perfect example of this is Dollar General, a corporate store that dominates lower income areas all over the nation. A typical Dollar General store employs around six people, far fewer than the 14 or so you’d find at a similarly sized independent grocery or general store. These jobs also tend to be low-wage — the median annual pay for Dollar General employees is roughly $14,571, with over 90% earning less than $15 per hour. Many of these workers rely on public assistance programs like SNAP and Medicaid to fill in the gaps, meaning the public is subsidizing what Dollar General doesn’t pay. Meanwhile, the company’s stores generate an average of $1 million to $7 million in annual revenue, depending on location and size. With gross profits averaging around $600,000 per store and net profits ranging from $20,000 to over $350,000 per location, Dollar General extracts significant income from the communities it operates in—while contributing relatively little back in wages or local reinvestment. Unlike locally owned stores, which typically recirculate 45–60% of their revenue within the local economy, Dollar General recirculates only about 14–30%. The majority of its profits flow outward to corporate headquarters, shareholders, and executive compensation—leaving the local economy hollowed out and dependent on low-wage jobs and public assistance.

The national and international takeover was largely the result of the financialization of the economy, where the manufacturing was replaced by finance, which was dramatically less advantageous to the working class. Today, financial services account for about 22% of all GDP (including real estate, rental, and leasing, the broader financial and related services) while manufacturing has dropped to 10%. Despite being only 22% of GDP, financial services produce 30-40% of profits in the U.S., like manufacturing used to, but unlike manufacturing financial services produces that same amount of profits while only employing 5% of the total workforce. So, they figured out how to produce the same profits while employing 25% less of the workforce, leaving the working class out of the sharing of gains. This problem is only going to get worse as the world moves in the “tech era.”

In Real Terms, How Fucked Are You?

Wages

Sticking with our theme of the 1950’s to today, it is difficult to make the comparison since we live in a completely different type of economy then we had back then, as referenced above. 

For production workers in manufacturing—about 30% of the workforce back then—the average hourly earnings were about $1.44 in January 1950. However, that category no longer represents the majority of working-class jobs. (Remember that phrase from the ’80s and ’90s—“We are becoming a service economy”—as if it were a good thing?) Let’s break it down in a way that tries to reflect the reality most Americans face today. 

Market “experts” and economic commentators often present an optimistic view of the U.S. economy by citing average wages across the entire private sector—a data point that can dramatically misrepresent the lived experience of average American workers. The problem lies in how that average is calculated and whose wages are pulling it upward.

Private sector averages include all industries, which means they lump together hourly wages of service workers with the six-figure salaries of software engineers, hedge fund analysts, and corporate executives. While these high-income sectors—like tech, finance, and upper management—employ a relatively small percentage of the workforce, they contribute disproportionately to total wage figures due to their massively higher earnings.

For example, a senior software engineer might earn $150,000+ per year, while a fast-food worker earns $30,000 or less. But in an average, those two are just “data points”—and the high earner significantly raises the mean. The result? The “average wage” figure may appear to be $36–40/hour, even though millions of workers earn less than $20/hour.

As of 2024, over 60% of the U.S. workforce is employed in low- to middle-wage service sectors—retail, healthcare support, hospitality, food service, cleaning, transportation, etc. In contrast, high-paying sectors like tech, finance, and corporate management account for a much smaller share of the workforce—often less than 15–20% depending on classification. Despite their smaller numbers, the income disparity between these groups is so vast that it overpowers the actual structure of the labor force in aggregate statistics.

By presenting these skewed averages as evidence of economic strength, experts—at times deliberately—bury the reality of the average worker: 

• The working class becomes statistically invisible in media narratives.
• Wage stagnation for most Americans is masked by the extreme gains of the top 10–20%.
• Policy makers and the public are led to believe that wages are rising for everyone, when in fact real wages for the bottom 50% have remained flat or even declined after adjusting for inflation.
• The public discourse around the economy becomes divorced from the economic pain experienced by a large portion of the population.

This statistical sleight-of-hand using averages hides inequality—and in doing so, they protect the interests of those at the top while erasing the voice of those at the bottom.

Realistically, median hourly wages in several key working-class fields are significantly lower. These represent occupations that are widely considered “working-class” today. 

• Food preparation & serving: $16.21
• Healthcare support: $17.69
• Personal care & service: $16.59
• Sales & related: $17.54
• Building & grounds cleaning/maintenance: $17.04

So, if we said the average low to middle class worker in America today averaged $20 an hour (and that is high), that means for over 60% of the workforce in America wages have only went up a nominal increase of approximately 33%, over 75 years. We arrive at a 33% real wage increase by comparing inflation-adjusted working-class wages over time. In 1950, the average wage for most workers was about $1.44 per hour, which equals roughly $15 per hour in today’s dollars; in 2025, over 60% of American workers earn $20 per hour or less. The increase from $15 to $20 represents a real wage growth of 33% over 75 years.

Transportation

In 1950, the average cost of a new car was about $2,210. By 2025, that figure has climbed to approximately $48,699—an increase of about 2,100% over the 75-year span. This dramatic rise outpaces general inflation and reflects how much more expensive vehicles have become in absolute terms, despite improvements in technology, safety, and performance. The cheapest new cars available are roughly $20,000, so even if we calculate that price it is still an 805% increase over that same period. 

Household Goods

Since 1963, food-at-home costs have risen about 2,353.9%, while overall inflation rose only 896%, meaning food prices climbed significantly faster than inflation. That suggests at least a 2.3× increase above inflation for grocery costs over that 60-year span. (Data to 1950 was unavailable, but extrapolating to 1950 likely indicates a similarly elevated overshoot.)

Housing

In 1950, the average cost of a U.S. home was approximately $7,354. As of early 2025, that figure has skyrocketed to around $446,300 for a new single-family home. That’s not just a mild increase — it’s a staggering 5,764% jump in raw price over 75 years.

This puts into perspective just how misleading it is when experts frame the rise in home prices as a “modest” 377% increase based only on inflation-adjusted dollars (i.e., from $7,354 in 1950 to ~$93,600 in today’s money). That inflation framing might suggest housing costs have merely grown at a steady pace — but the actual market reality tells a much different story. The raw, real-world increase is nearly 15× greater than what inflation alone would predict.

But the affordability crisis goes deeper. In the mid-20th century, median home prices were about 3× the average annual income. Today, even using the widely-cited national average wage of ~$75,000/year, housing is around 5–6× income. However, this wage figure is deeply misleading.

Recent labor data shows that about 62% of the U.S. workforce earns less than $20/hour. Using that far more accurate working-class income of $20/hour — which equates to roughly $41,600/year — the affordability gap becomes severe: ≈10.7x annual income in 

That’s not just unaffordable — it’s nearly quadruple the historic affordability ratio. Housing hasn’t just become expensive; it’s become structurally unattainable for most of the American workforce. The “experts” are telling us that housing prices are rising in line with the broader economy — when in truth, housing has become a runaway cost while most wages have barely budged.

The gap between housing cost and income isn’t just growing — it’s gaping. And it’s why homeownership, once a defining feature of the American Dream, is now a statistical improbability for more than half the country. We arrive at a 5,764% increase in housing costs by comparing the average home price in 1950—about $7,354—to the 2025 median price of approximately $446,300. This means home prices have risen by more than 56 times their original cost, resulting in a total increase of 5,764 percent over 75 years.

“But there are a lot of homes available for $250,000” Yes, this is true, largely outside of metropolitan areas and often in areas that offer lower incomes. But even if we look at houses that cost $250,000, we arrive at a 3,301% increase in housing costs by comparing the average home price in 1950—about $7,354—to a 2025 price of approximately $250,000. This means home prices have risen by more than 33 times their original cost, resulting in a total increase of 3,301% over 75 years.

The Bottom Line

For 60% or more of the American workforce:

• The cost of a vehicle increased by about 800% to 2,100%, while wages rose only 33%.
• The cost of groceries increased by roughly 2,354%, while wages rose only 33%.
• The cost of a house increased 3,000% to 5,764%, while wages rose only 33%.

This is why young people do not want to participate in the workforce, they intuitively know that it will not pay off for them in terms of being able to buy a home and start a family. To them, the American Dream is non-existent. This is also why the average American worker, regardless of age, is drowning in debt and increasingly finding themselves locked out of home ownership and financial security. 

To put it plainly, The economic outlook for the average American worker is increasingly bleak. Today, over 60% of the U.S. workforce earns $20 an hour or less, placing them squarely in the low-wage tier of the economy. Despite decades of economic growth, real wages for this group have increased just 33% since 1950, while the cost of essentials—like housing, transportation, and food—has surged by thousands of percent. Homeownership, once considered the cornerstone of the American Dream, now requires over 10 times the annual income of an average worker, up from just 3 times in the 1960s. The modern economy has effectively abandoned its working class, saddling them with stagnating pay and rising costs, while productivity gains and profits flow upward. 

Sound bad? In the famous words of Billy Mays “But Wait, There’s More!”

Demographics Matter

So what about that sector of high earners? Wouldn’t the youth and other Americans move toward those higher paying jobs and step above the 60% of the workforce earning $20 or less? I’m sure they would like to, but they are being replaced by corporations that put profits above national interests. In tech roles, especially software development and creative IT roles, we see a large presence of visa holders or foreign-born workers (around 40%). Managerial roles in tech-heavy areas like Silicon Valley similarly show a high percentage of non‑citizen participation—exceeding 40% in those specialized clusters. 

At the same time, access to the few remaining high-paying jobs in tech, finance, and management is increasingly limited. Up to 40% of roles in tech-related fields—including managerial positions in Silicon Valley—are now held by foreign-born or visa-dependent workers, particularly through programs like H‑1B, which disproportionately serve large corporations. Their influx has created a system where corporate employers can fill high-paying positions while effectively bypassing American workers. This shift not only depresses wage potential in those sectors but also blocks upward mobility, leaving the majority of American workers trapped in low-wage jobs with shrinking opportunities for advancement. The result is a deeply stratified economy—one where the ladder out of working-class poverty is being pulled up in real time.

Another often-overlooked dynamic within the influx of H-1B and foreign-born workers in tech and specialized managerial roles is the strong tendency toward nepotism and insular hiring practices. Once a critical mass of foreign workers from a particular country or cultural background is established within a company or department, hiring often becomes heavily network-driven—favoring friends, relatives, or those from the same ethnic or academic networks. This pattern is especially prevalent in tech hubs and large corporations, where entire teams or divisions may end up dominated by one nationality or cultural group. While this may foster internal cohesion for those within the network, it frequently leads to exclusionary environments for domestic workers—particularly those without elite credentials or access to the same referral pipelines—further reinforcing the barriers to upward mobility in sectors already out of reach for most Americans. Add in the very real and often exposed DEI policies of corporations to purposely not hire white Americans, and you have an entire segment of heritage American workers that are locked out of modern financial advancement. 

Tech companies import a large number of foreign workers, especially through the H‑1B visa program, primarily for reasons of cost, control, and supply. Foreign workers on these visas are often paid less than their American counterparts for similar roles, thanks to loopholes and job classifications that allow employers to offer salaries below market rates. Additionally, visa holders are tied to their sponsoring employer, which limits their ability to switch jobs or negotiate higher pay, giving companies greater leverage and reducing turnover and wage pressure. Effectively, this a form of slavery where the company exerts enough control over the workers’ lives to control the behavior and mobility of the worker. 

Companies also often claim there is a shortage of qualified domestic workers in technical fields like software engineering and AI, though we can certainly argue this shortage is exaggerated and many capable domestic candidates are overlooked due to factors like salary expectations or lack of elite credentials (which goes into an entire other subject about elite universities accepting visa students over domestic). Furthermore, many H‑1B hires come through partnerships with foreign universities or offshore contractors, allowing companies to bypass the slower and more expensive domestic hiring process and access a pre-vetted global talent pool. 

Large tech firms have also lobbied extensively to maintain or expand visa quotas, shaping immigration policies that favor importing foreign labor. Ultimately, while the public narrative centers on skills shortages and competitiveness, the underlying motivation is economic efficiency and labor control—importing workers reduces costs, limits turnover, and creates a more compliant workforce.

This globalization of American business has eroded the traditional social contract that once linked corporate success with broad-based domestic prosperity. Instead of investing in American communities and workers, companies focus on shareholder value, tax minimization through offshore subsidiaries, and exploiting global labor arbitrage. As a result, the average American worker is left disadvantaged, trapped in low-wage jobs with limited opportunities for advancement, while corporate profits soar and the benefits of economic growth flow primarily to executives, investors, and foreign labor. In this system, the domestic worker is up against an overwhelming economic structure—one that is no longer anchored in the American economy or workforce but dispersed worldwide—making it nearly impossible to compete on equal footing or secure a prosperous future.

This is why every time I hear that boomer type of rhetoric about working a 3^rd job and “I did it, so can you” I feel visceral anger. That statement completely lacks awareness of what is happening around you. If you came of age between the 1960s and 1980s, you lived in the greatest economic time in history for a working class person. The cost of life’s essentials has so vastly outpaced wages that there truly is not much hope for the younger generations of average Americans. It’s not just the young, all of us in what’s left of the middle class are feeling it. As housing valuations rise, so do rents. If you own a home with debt, the monthly cost goes up with the higher insurance rates and taxes that accompany that valuation increase. (I personally have experienced a 50% increase in my monthly house cost over just four years rising nearly 20% each year, all due to insurance and taxes.) Add in the massive increase in groceries since just 5 years ago, along with the increase of everything else, and the uphill slope becomes steeper and steeper. We are facing a crisis directly, head on. 

The Great Fucking of America

Over the past several decades, the American economy has undergone a profound transformation—from a manufacturing-based, creative, and productive system that built widespread prosperity, to a financialized economy dominated by speculation, shareholder primacy, and global corporate interests. This shift was driven by a growing powerhouse of multinational corporations and financial institutions that wield immense political influence, shaping policies to prioritize profits above all else. 

This financialization and globalization have created a sociopathic system focused narrowly on short-term gains, disregarding the broader national interests and the well-being of domestic citizens and workers. Meanwhile, political power remains concentrated in the hands of this global corporate oligarchy, which uses its influence to maintain a labor market that disadvantages native workers and undermines democratic accountability. In essence, the American economy no longer serves the majority of its people but operates as a mechanism for wealth extraction and control by a transnational elite—leaving the native workforce marginalized in their own country and struggling to find a foothold in an increasingly inhospitable system. 

But we voted to “Make America Great Again!” didn’t we? Apparently, you thought you did. What we got is Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and federal bills that will irreversibly entrench the technocracy. Despite populist rhetoric promising to put “America First,” Trump’s landmark legislation and regulatory priorities have often reinforced the dominance of global tech conglomerates. His “big beautiful bill”—intended to cut corporate taxes and stimulate American industry—ultimately entrenched the power of multinational tech firms, slashing their tax burdens while doing little to incentivize domestic hiring or protect the working class. At the same time, policies that appeared tough on immigration left open wide backdoors for visa programs like H-1B, ensuring that companies could continue importing foreign labor for high-tech roles—deepening wage stagnation and displacement among American workers.

What was sold as nationalist policy turned out to be protectionist for corporate oligarchs, not for the people. These moves helped lock in a system where financialized global interests thrive, while the domestic labor force is left with fewer opportunities, lower pay, and rising costs of living. It’s a reshuffling of power—not toward the American worker, but toward a global corporacracy insulated from public accountability.

Visa Policy, Displacement, and the Quiet Restructuring of the American Workforce

Trump recently stated that he wants to bring in 600,000 Chinese visa students. This was confirmed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during a Fox News appearance, where he explained the administration’s reasoning:

“Well, the president’s point of view is that what would happen if you didn’t have those 600,000 students is that … the bottom 15% of universities and colleges would go out of business in America.”

Let’s be clear about what’s being said: we need to prop up low-tier struggling colleges with American students—but reserve elite academic spots for foreign nationals who will then pipeline into our most lucrative career paths. That’s not education policy. That’s economic gatekeeping disguised as diplomacy that directly benefits the corporate class and the foriegner, while it screws Americans. It’s a direct “fuck you” to American students, as well as to heritage Americans as a whole. 

This narrative becomes even harder to stomach when you consider the broader employment visa landscape. The U.S. government issues roughly 600,000 white-collar-related work visas per year, and about 70% of those go to entry or junior-level positions. That means around 420,000 foreign workers annually are taking or holding jobs at the gateway level in high-paying STEM and business fields—the same fields where recent American grads are increasingly underemployed or shut out completely.

To make matters worse, a significant portion of these visa workers don’t pay into Social Security or Medicare (FICA taxes). Holders of visas such as F-1, J-1, M-1, and Q-1 are exempt from FICA taxation on wages related to their visa purpose—for up to five years in many cases. Their employers also don’t have to pay their portion of FICA, creating a combined 15% tax advantage. This gives companies every financial incentive to hire foreign labor over equally qualified domestic workers. And it’s all perfectly legal.

The public conversation tends to focus solely on H‑1B visas, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When you factor in other categories like L‑1 (intra-company transfers), OPT (Optional Practical Training for foreign students), O‑1 (for “extraordinary ability”), H‑4 (spouses of H‑1Bs with work authorization), TN (NAFTA professionals), J‑1 (exchange visitors), and E‑1/E‑2 (treaty-based workers and investors)—the number balloons. In total, over 1.3 million temporary employment-based visas were issued in recent years, including dependents.

And those dependents matter. Especially under H‑4 work authorizations, spouses often enter the same field as the primary visa holder, building tight-knit hiring networks. Once these individuals climb the corporate ladder into managerial or lead roles, they often prioritize hiring within their personal or ethnic circles, leading to a feedback loop of nepotism. This practice has created enclaves within industries like tech and finance, where native-born candidates—especially those from non-elite institutions—are routinely passed over. Meritocracy, in these environments, becomes a myth.

What’s happening here isn’t just about workforce gaps or high-skilled immigration. It’s about a quiet restructuring of the American labor market—a shift that displaces domestic talent, funnels opportunity through unaccountable immigration pipelines, and reshapes entire industries without a single vote from the American public.

In parallel with visa-driven labor shifts, U.S. corporations have systematically offshored domestic jobs while funneling billions into offshore administrative and technological hubs. For example, energy giant Chevron is investing $1 billion in a new engineering and innovation center in Bengaluru, India, slated to add 600 jobs—even as it trims its U.S. workforce via layoffs. Meanwhile, tech giants like Google and Oracle have executed significant U.S. layoffs—Oracle cutting over 3,000 jobs globally despite $57 billion in revenue, and Google relocating hundreds of finance and operations roles to India, Mexico, and Ireland. 

Across the broader economy, it’s estimated that between 150,000 and 300,000 U.S. jobs were offshored annually between 2004 and 2015—amounting to 10–15% of new job creation. Moreover, this trend isn’t limited to manufacturing; up to 300,000 white-collar jobs are outsourced each year, with IT outsourcing accounting for $62 billion of the $92.5 billion global offshoring market. The result: not only are U.S. workers losing jobs, but communities are losing economic lifelines as corporations chase cheap overseas labor while abandoning their American workforce. The corporate and tech lords and billionaires have absolutely zero national allegiance and should not be considered “American” companies any longer. 

This is all done by the same elites who completely fund the politicians’ campaigns, and get an exclusive all-access audience with the politicians after they are elected. Not surprisingly, after the elections their companies are held up as some great American column and given massive government contracts in the billions. And it’s all sold to us on emotional bullshit messaging that simple minded people eat up like hogs at slop troughs. “I voted for mass deportation!” They show themselves arresting some gardeners and fruit pickers, while behind the curtain they are ramping up the importation of “legal” immigrants fast tracking them into the higher pay scale of our workforce, simultaneously deporting almost as many jobs as they import workers. It’s a fucking ruse.

The Facade of Political Power

Not only did this economic shift reduce the standard of living for the working middle class, it also drastically reduced their political power. They are largely unnecessary for the continuance of profit production (and can easily be replaced), so they don’t have any leverage there. They are swamped in debt and survival, which distracts from the time, energy or confidence needed to participate in politics in very real terms. The result is that political power has shifted firmly to the financial sector. 

A well-known 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found that average citizens have “near-zero” impact on policy outcomes. In contrast, economic elites and organized business interests have substantial influence. Based on various estimates and models: A working estimate is that1 billionaire ≈ 20,000 to 100,000+ average citizens in political influence.

And that might even understate it due to several key factors: Billionaires fund entire media ecosystems. They bankroll Super PACs, think tanks, and lobbying groups. They can directly buy access to lawmakers. They shape long-term policy narratives through “philanthropy”, education, and infrastructure.

In 2020, just 100 individuals accounted for over 70% of Super PAC donations. The U.S. has democratic procedures, but deeply undemocratic outcomes — especially when wealth and power are so heavily concentrated. 

Tech giants like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk have played a huge role in this past election. Look at Elon in particular. We all know the role he played in Trump’s election and with the spending cuts show they put on, but who is he in terms of his role in this economy? As of September 30, 2024, Tesla employed 1,767 workers on H-1B visas, ranking it 22nd among all U.S. companies utilizing the program. In the 2024 fiscal year, Tesla submitted 2,067 Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) for H-1B visas, with 742 being first-time applicants and 1,025 for continuing employment. This indicates a significant increase in Tesla’s use of the H-1B program, more than doubling the number of first-time applicants compared to the previous year. However, it’s important to note that Tesla’s H-1B visa holders are primarily employed in specialized roles such as mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, industrial engineers, and software developers. Given that these positions are typically considered higher-tech, it’s reasonable to infer that a significant portion of Tesla’s higher-tech workforce comprises H-1B visa holders. Does he give a shit about America? Yes, but not your America. They care about the new America that focuses solely on GDP and profits while sacrificing the culture and well-being of the heritage American worker at that same, dirty altar. 

It is very important to note that Elon’s wealth is largely funded by taxpayer money. Elon Musk’s ventures—primarily Tesla, SpaceX, and related projects—have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits since the early 2000s. In 2024 alone, Musk’s businesses were awarded $6.3 billion in government support. SpaceX has secured around $22 billion in contracts, including larger awards from NASA and DoD. Tesla benefited from a $465 million low-interest DOE loan and received $11.4 billion in regulatory credit revenue, along with roughly $3.4 billion in EV tax credits to buyers—some of which supported elevated sales prices. And don’t forget, he himself is came as an F-1 student visa and stayed with an H1B visa, before gaining citizenship.

Peter Thiel plays a much more significant role in all of this. Peter Thiel is a co-founder and major shareholder of Palantir Technologies. He has used his influence to position Palantir as a key government contractor, particularly with U.S. intelligence, defense, and law enforcement agencies — reinforcing the company’s close relationship with emerging state infrastructure. I won’t even go into here the magnitude of bad things tech companies like Palantir have in store for us. Suffice it to say that Palantir is building a vast, opaque surveillance infrastructure that integrates government and corporate data to track, analyze, and profile individuals at an unprecedented scale—without appropriate public oversight or meaningful accountability. 

It is important to note that Thiel has deployed substantial financial and political capital in support of key conservative figures and Republican campaigns. In 2016, he donated $1.25 million to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and served on the campaign’s transition team, notably helping organize high-level meetings between tech leaders and incoming administration officials.

Since then, he has continued his influence: between 2021 and 2022, Thiel contributed approximately $10 million to a Super PAC supporting J.D. Vance’s successful Senate bid and about $15 million to a Super PAC backing Blake Masters—both former associates and protégés. I firmly believe JD Vance is wholly an artificial construct of these oligarchs, crafted and positioned for power in a way that is now evident and bearing fruit for his financial creators. 

Thiel has also extended his influence by placing allies in significant government roles and advocating for policy shifts. His associates, like Michael Kratsios (former Thiel Capital staffer), became Chief Technology Officer of the United States, while others from Palantir and Founders Fund secured key advisory and defense-related appointments. Meanwhile, companies Thiel backs—such as Palantir and Anduril—have benefited from lucrative government contracts, highlighting how his financial support and network have translated into tangible favor in Washington. Peter Thiel has significantly shaped Republican political strategy by funding campaigns, helping elevate allies into government positions, and steering policy and contract flows in ways that benefit his broader tech and defense network.

This means that your votes truly did not matter much, although you thought they did. The winners were picked for you by the corporate oligarchs, and then sold to you with a nationalist rhetoric that promised a return to a past greatness and relief from the decline of our economy and our once great country. I know, I believed it, too. I wanted it to be true so badly, and I believed it one last time. But when you look at the realities, the real results of what is being done, and the players involved with their personal interests blatantly apparent, you can not help but realize you have been duped. 

If you are inclined to say at this point, “Well, you’re great at pointing out the problem. Now what’s the solution”. That response misses the point. You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge. Calling out structural decay and broken incentives is a necessary first step. Pretending the system works, or that we can vote our way out while corporate money owns both parties, is naïve. Solutions require honesty, and the courage to break from comforting narratives. In the meantime, the practical advice is survival—reduce expenses, increase resilience, and protect yourself from a system designed not to serve you. My advice at this point is to work feverishly to position yourself against hardship. This means lowering your own bills and overhead as much as possible, and increasing your income at the same time in any ways possible. We are facing the very real and arguably likely possibility of some very hard times. And remember, our hard times are not reflected by the GDP of the nation, because that is their GDP, not ours. To the vast majority of Americans, the stock market and the S&P500 mean jack shit when affording housing, transportation and food becomes more and more difficult. Those are not profits that the vast majority of us reap any rewards from, despite being the ones who fund most of it with our taxes

I hear the ‘live within your means’ argument often — and for much of American history, it was true advice. Frugality, hard work, and discipline really could build a stable life. But here’s the hard part to accept: that mindset has been weaponized against us. Today’s economy is very clearly engineered to extract, not reward. Wages have stagnated while costs for housing, food, and transportation have exploded — by thousands of percent over wages! Value flies out of our communities and our country and does not come back in kind. Sure, you may be keeping yourself on the treadmill, but others are not and it’s not always due to lack of effort or discipline. This fake economy is an accelerating conveyor belt and we are all on it, some are just closer to the grinder at the end than others. While I may not be falling into the grinder right now, I can see many people who are. I have immense empathy for them and enough foresight to see that most Americans are not too far from their position. 

The American worker has been sacrificed—gutted by a system that sold out productivity for profit, sovereignty for speculation, and labor for leverage. What once was a nation of builders is now ruled by financial parasites and billionaire oligarchs, importing cheap labor to pad stock prices while exporting the last remnants of a middle class. The “economy” is no longer a reflection of people’s lives—it’s a spreadsheet engineered to conceal the collapse of average people’s lives. Corporate oligarchs write policy, foreign visa holders take the top jobs, and 60% of Americans scrape by on wages that haven’t kept up with reality in decades. The politicians know this. They helped build it. And now they tell you to vote harder while you drown in debt, priced out of the land your grandparents bled to own. This isn’t a healthy economy. It’s an extraction operation. Continuing to fall for the false rhetoric and lies will be the death of us.

“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to… the general prey of the rich on the poor.” Thomas Jefferson