Here's what really bothers me about corporate America. These companies want Americans to buy their products, pay for their services, and keep their revenues growing, but they're increasingly shipping the jobs overseas. They want us as consumers, just not as employees. They extract wealth from the American economy while moving more of the wages and economic activity that wealth generates somewhere else.
Think about what that does over time. Every decent-paying job moved overseas means less money circulating in American communities. That's money that would have been spent at local businesses, restaurants, stores, and on housing. That's economic activity that would have generated tax revenue to support schools, roads, and infrastructure. Instead, more of the gains flow to shareholders, and a disproportionate share of those gains goes to a relatively small group of wealthy investors.
And these people aren't even taxed the same way workers are. Someone working 50 hours a week pays taxes on their wages, while someone sitting on millions in appreciating stock can accumulate enormous wealth without paying taxes on those unrealized gains. We've created something resembling a modern rentier class, where owning assets is increasingly more rewarding than actually working.
Meanwhile, the stock market keeps reaching new highs, but wages aren't keeping pace. Investment wealth can grow several times faster than workers' earnings, and the gap compounds year after year. The people who already own assets get richer, while the people whose labor keeps these companies running fall further behind.
Then add housing and food inflation. Workers are getting squeezed from every direction. Even when their wages increase, their disposable income barely moves. For young people, it's particularly brutal. In some markets, saving for a down payment can take something like 16 years instead of eight a generation ago. How are they supposed to become independent, buy a home, start a family, or build wealth when the entry point keeps moving further away?
Homeownership has historically been one of the main ways ordinary Americans accumulate wealth. Now we're making it increasingly inaccessible while rewarding those who already own property and financial assets.
And here's the part that really gets me: corporations still depend on a functioning American middle class to buy their products. But they're systematically weakening the very people they depend on. You cannot keep extracting purchasing power from a society while eliminating the jobs and wages that create that purchasing power in the first place.
This isn't sustainable. Eventually, you end up with a country full of consumers who can't afford to consume, workers who can't build wealth, and a small ownership class accumulating an ever-larger share of everything.
We're not building a prosperous society anymore. We're building an economy that works brilliantly for people who already own things and increasingly poorly for everyone who has to work for a living.