July 4 we celebrate the land of the free and the home of the brave. A good occasion to reflect a bit more.
The mantra “Follow the money” has wider relevance than the Powell Memo, the Mafia-like grab for power, that led to the current state of the union. To acquire money, nothing is more effective than ownership of money. Old money creates new money. American wealth started to be built in the eighteen-hundreds by genocide of native Americans and by slavery. A third factor in building America’s wealth is the cheap labor provided by immigration without the costs of education and childcare. Wealth thus acquired since two hundred years, keeps paying off. American universities led to inventions and patents that allowed the monopolies of the robber barons. Roosevelt’s New Deal spread that wealth. Then, computers allowed the new monopolies of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook. Again, ownership of a process (= monopoly) requires and creates wealth. Trump’s warfare by tariffs is beside the point. Manufacturing is no longer a driving force of progress. Ironically, Trump sees immigration, a non-criminal wealth-building factor, as the main reason for the end of the American Dream. July 4 2025