They Can't Afford to Live.
Someone Is Still Getting Rich.

The American Dream Is Becoming Someone Else's Investment Portfolio

Troy Closson's recent New York Times article, “Can't Afford a Home. Can't Afford a Baby. Can't Afford Life. This Is 30,” captures a reality that should alarm anyone who cares about the future of the United States.

Young Americans are working. They are earning degrees, building careers, paying taxes, and trying to make responsible decisions. Yet many cannot afford a home, cannot confidently plan a family, and cannot accumulate enough savings to feel secure.

A couple of public schoolteachers cannot find an affordable two-bedroom apartment. A young professional contemplates relying on his parents to buy a home. Another worker struggles to cover medical expenses while living paycheck to paycheck.

These are not people who simply forgot to stop ordering takeout.

They are people discovering that the economic bargain they were taught to trust may no longer work as advertised.

But there is a question the discussion too often avoids.

If millions of Americans are struggling to afford the necessities of life, where is the money going, who is capturing the gains, and why have our institutions failed to correct the imbalance?

We are routinely told that housing is expensive because demand is high while people put numerous listings on AirBNB, raise rent, or foreign capital prices out domestic citizens, healthcare costs are complicated, wages are subject to market forces, and raising children requires sacrifice. Each explanation may contain some truth. None is sufficient on its own.

An economy is not a force of nature operating independently of human decisions. It is shaped by legislation, financial rules, ownership, monetary policy, corporate strategy, international trade, public spending, and the decisions of people who possess the power to influence all of them.

Those decisions have consequences.

And when the same groups repeatedly benefit while ordinary people lose access to housing, savings, productive assets, and economic independence, we should investigate the arrangement rather than lecture the public about its inability to cope.

The crisis described in the Times is not merely a story about people turning 30. It is a story about a country in which the cost of participating in ordinary life has risen beyond the reach of too many people who keep the country functioning.

It is about the possibility that America is becoming exceptionally good at generating financial claims on its population while becoming less successful at ensuring that its population can live securely.

That should concern us far more than whether a generation has the right attitude toward adulthood.

This Is Not Just Inflation. It Is a Question of Power.

Inflation matters. Housing shortages matter. Interest rates matter. Healthcare expenses, student loans, childcare costs, and stagnant purchasing power matter.

But we must also examine who has the power to shape these conditions.

Consider housing. A home is a place to live, but it is also a financial asset. Rising property values may enrich existing owners while making entry into the market more expensive for everyone who does not already own property. The materials to build homes became less sturdy and more expensive.

Consider healthcare. People cannot simply stop needing treatment when prices rise. Their demand for essential care is constrained by their health, not by their ability to shop around indefinitely. The Medical field became incentized to prescribe branded medicines and gatekeep cures to maintain a lifestyle or not be employed at a Hospital because of board over sight.

Consider employment. A worker with no savings, expensive medical needs, and rent due next week has less freedom to refuse poor working conditions than someone with substantial financial reserves. Trickle down economy is more about who-you-know and College became a place of networking and control in this digital age of cameras.

Consider education. A young person may take on significant debt to qualify for employment, then discover that servicing the debt consumes money that would otherwise go toward a home, a family, or retirement.

These are not identical problems. But they share an important feature: when people cannot avoid purchasing essential goods and services, whoever controls access to those necessities can possess extraordinary economic leverage.

That leverage can be used productively. It can and also be used to exploit, like OnlyFans.

We should therefore examine whether our institutions are encouraging the creation of more homes, better healthcare, productive businesses, and well-paid work—or allowing scarcity, concentration, and financial dependence to become profitable in their own right.

A system can remain legally capitalist while drifting away from genuinely competitive markets. It can retain private property while making ownership increasingly inaccessible. It can celebrate entrepreneurship while permitting established firms to use political influence to restrict competition.

It can promise individual freedom while leaving people so financially vulnerable that their practical choices become severely constrained.

None of this requires us to assume that every damaging outcome was planned in a secret room. But it does require us to recognize that policy choices can systematically benefit some groups at the expense of others—and that powerful beneficiaries often have strong incentives to preserve arrangements that work for them.

Digital Money, Tokenization, and the Future of the Dollar

Another transformation is taking shape in the infrastructure of money itself. Large data centers are being built to support artificial intelligence, drink water, cloud computing, digital payments, and other data-intensive services like tracking and predicting. At the same time, financial institutions are exploring tokenization: representing assets such as bonds, funds, or property as digital tokens that can be recorded and transferred on digital networks.

These developments matter because financial systems depend on more than the currency printed on a note. They also depend on the networks, institutions, laws, and public confidence that make money usable and widely accepted.

Tokenized assets may allow transactions to be recorded and settled more quickly, with clearer digital records. But an audit trail is not the same thing as accountability. A record can show that a transaction occurred; it cannot, by itself, establish that the transaction was fair, lawful, secure, or in the public interest. Those questions still require sound rules, independent oversight, privacy protections, and ways to challenge errors or abuse.

Bitcoin is one example of a digital asset. It has influenced public debate about money and financial control, but it is not the same as a government-issued currency, and its existence does not establish that the dollar is about to lose its reserve-currency role. Likewise, the growth of data centers and tokenization does not, on its own, prove that outcome.

Still, the direction of change deserves attention. If more financial activity moves onto digital networks, questions of access, ownership, surveillance, cybersecurity, and control will become increasingly important. Who operates the infrastructure? Who can see or alter the records? What happens when a system fails, or when someone is wrongly excluded from it? And who is responsible when technology makes a financial decision difficult to understand or appeal?

The U.S. dollar’s international role rests on a broad set of factors, including confidence in American institutions in the international markets, the scale of the economy, deep financial markets, and the availability of dollar-based assets. New technologies may change how financial claims are represented and transferred, but they do not automatically replace those foundations.

The public should therefore approach claims about the “end” of the dollar with care—and approach the infrastructure being built around digital finance with equal seriousness. The important question is not simply whether money will become digital. It is whether the systems that manage it will remain transparent, resilient, accountable, and accessible to the people whose lives depend on them.

The More Uncomfortable Possibility: What If the Damage Is Not Entirely Accidental?

Let us confront the question directly.

Could some of the forces weakening American economic independence be the foreseeable, and in certain cases deliberately accepted, consequences of political and financial decisions?

Yes, that is a legitimate question to investigate.

The distinction is between documenting a decision that benefits a narrow interest and proving that the decision was made as part of a coordinated plan to destroy the country.

We should not confuse the two.

A policymaker may knowingly support a measure that benefits an industry despite its costs to consumers. A corporation may deliberately pursue a business strategy that increases its profits while imposing costs on workers or communities. A government may prioritize geopolitical objectives over domestic economic needs. A regulatory agency may tolerate harmful practices because enforcement is politically difficult.

These are questions of incentives, responsibility, and accountability.

When such choices repeatedly undermine domestic productive capacity or household security, the public deserves to know why.

Who advocated the policy? Who financed the political effort behind it? Who received the contract, subsidy, tax advantage, or investment gain? What evidence did decision-makers have about its likely consequences? Were less damaging alternatives available? Were warnings ignored?

And if a pattern of misconduct emerges, why should the people responsible be shielded from scrutiny simply because the decisions were made through official institutions?

America does not need to prove the existence of one master plan before it can confront institutional failure. But if we suspect deliberate sabotage, we must be willing to follow evidence wherever it leads.

Economic decline can be produced by corruption, regulatory capture, bad incentives, negligence, ideological rigidity, or intentional misconduct. These causes require different remedies. Treating them as interchangeable would make it harder to identify the actual problem.

Our task is not to manufacture certainty.

It is to establish accountability.

The Administrative Elite and the Privatization of Public Power

A particularly dangerous arrangement emerges when political authority and private wealth become mutually reinforcing.

The public finances infrastructure, supports research, provides legal protections, maintains financial institutions, and funds national defense. Businesses use these foundations to operate, invest, and generate profits.

That relationship is not inherently corrupt. A functioning economy requires public institutions and private enterprise.

The danger appears when access to public power becomes a competitive advantage reserved for insiders.

A politically connected company may receive favorable treatment. A contractor may benefit from procurement rules that discourage competition. An industry may influence regulations intended to oversee it. Officials may move between public positions and lucrative private employment in ways that create conflicts of interest.

The result is a system in which the public carries costs while well-positioned private interests capture disproportionate benefits.

Call it crony capitalism, regulatory capture, or the revolving door between government and industry. The underlying issue is the same: economic privilege becomes intertwined with political influence.

This is not a defense of free markets. It is a distortion of them.

Genuine competition requires that businesses succeed by creating value, not by purchasing privileged access to the institutions that govern their competitors.

The public should not have to accept a system in which ordinary people are told that budgets must be tightened while politically connected entities receive favorable treatment without demonstrating a corresponding public benefit.

Nor should government officials be permitted to treat public resources as though they were personal assets to distribute among friends, relatives, donors, and favored institutions.

Public office is a responsibility, not an inheritance. Public money is not private property.

And the authority to make decisions affecting millions of people should come with meaningful transparency, enforceable ethical standards, independent auditing, and consequences for misconduct.

America's Resources: Wealth on Paper, Vulnerability in Practice

America remains endowed with extraordinary resources: fertile agricultural land, energy reserves, mineral deposits, technological expertise, industrial knowledge, and a large domestic market.

Yet natural wealth alone does not guarantee national security or economic prosperity.

Resources must be developed responsibly, infrastructure must be maintained, supply chains must be resilient, and the benefits of production must be weighed against the costs imposed on communities and future generations.

What happens when a company extracts a valuable resource but leaves environmental damage behind? What happens when essential infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate because maintenance produces less immediate financial or political reward than a new project? What happens when strategic manufacturing moves abroad and the country becomes dependent on a narrow range of external suppliers?

The country may remain wealthy in aggregate while becoming less capable of sustaining itself.

These are real vulnerabilities, and they deserve serious investigation.

We should examine contracts, ownership records, environmental data, industrial trends, public subsidies, and the decisions behind critical infrastructure projects. Where there is evidence of fraud, illegal pollution, deliberate destruction, or abuse of public resources, there should be investigations and consequences.

Where the problem is poor planning, weak regulation, or a perverse incentive structure, the solution should address the underlying failure.

And where a claim of intentional national sabotage cannot be substantiated, it should remain a question rather than be presented as an established fact.

The larger principle is straightforward: a nation's natural and industrial wealth should strengthen its long-term independence, not become an opportunity for short-term extraction at the public's expense.

Economic Warfare Does Not Always Look Like War

Nations and the families that define them compete through military force, but they also compete through finance, technology, trade, energy, industrial capacity, and access to strategic resources.

Sanctions, export controls, tariffs, investment restrictions, cyber operations, and supply-chain pressure can all have economic consequences. Some are legitimate tools of national security. Others can be poorly designed, counterproductive, or disproportionately costly to domestic households.

Foreign governments and other actors can exploit weaknesses in American systems. But so can domestic institutions make decisions that leave the country unnecessarily exposed.

A nation that neglects its industrial base, loses essential manufacturing knowledge, underinvests in infrastructure, and allows critical dependencies to accumulate may find itself with fewer options during a crisis.

The resulting vulnerability can be strategically significant regardless of whether it originated in foreign pressure, domestic negligence, or a policy designed around short-term gains.

The question is whether American policy strengthens the country's ability to act independently.

When we commit enormous resources to foreign conflicts, we should ask what national objectives are being pursued, what outcomes are realistically achievable, who bears the financial cost, and how the commitment affects domestic infrastructure, industrial investment, and future public budgets.

When we impose trade restrictions, we should examine whether they improve security enough to justify their costs.

When we subsidize strategic industries, we should establish whether the money produces durable domestic capacity or simply increases the returns of firms that already possess considerable political influence.

A country can pursue legitimate international responsibilities while still demanding accountability for their costs.

National security should protect the country, not become a blank check for every institution that claims to serve it.

The Human Cost: When People Must Monetize Their Own Desperation

There is another consequence of an economy that becomes increasingly difficult to live in: people may begin turning parts of their private lives into sources of income because other options appear insufficient.

Some take additional jobs. Some move into overcrowded housing. Some rely on family assistance. Some sell personal possessions, borrow money, or turn to online platforms to monetize their attention, appearance, or sexuality.

Subscription-based adult-content platforms are one example of this wider phenomenon.

People who use such platforms have different motivations and circumstances. Some do so by choice, as an entrepreneurial activity. Others may experience significant financial pressure. We should not assume that every creator is desperate or that people who engage in this work lack agency.

But we should be willing to ask why the financial pressure exists in the first place.

What does it say about an economy when people who work full-time still struggle to afford rent, healthcare, and basic necessities—and when monetizing personal exposure becomes an appealing or necessary route to financial survival?

The problem is not the individual attempting to earn money.

The problem is a society that can make financial desperation profitable for intermediaries while leaving the underlying insecurity unresolved.

A person should be free to make choices about their body, work, and private life. But meaningful freedom requires alternatives. When the cost of refusing an arrangement is homelessness, untreated illness, or hunger, the economic circumstances surrounding that choice deserve scrutiny.

We should want an economy in which people can earn a living through many different forms of productive work, build financial security, and maintain their privacy if they wish.

We should not shame those navigating hardship. We should question the conditions that make hardship so difficult to escape.

No, Replacing Capitalism With Centralized Control Is Not the Answer

When people lose faith in the existing economic order, it is understandable that they search for a radically different system and some wait in the shadows like they plotted it all.

But centralized communism can concentrate control over production, employment, and resources in a political bureaucracy. Without independent institutions, meaningful competition, civil liberties, and effective public accountability, that concentration can leave ordinary people dependent on administrators they cannot readily challenge.

At the same time, unrestrained markets can permit monopolies, exploitation, environmental damage, and the concentration of wealth that undermines genuine competition.

Neither state ownership of everything nor private ownership without meaningful limits guarantees a free or prosperous society.

The more useful distinction is between an economy that rewards productive contribution and one that rewards control over access, scarcity, and political privilege.

America needs competitive markets, secure property rights, effective antitrust enforcement, accountable government, responsible resource management, and broader opportunities for people to accumulate assets.

It should be possible to build a successful business without political connections. It should be possible to work and save without remaining permanently trapped by essential expenses. It should be possible to invest in America without treating public subsidies as private entitlements.

The goal is not to eliminate differences in income or make every individual financially identical.

It is to ensure that the rules do not become permanently tilted toward those who already possess the most wealth and influence.

What Would Rebuilding America Actually Look Like?

The response to economic extraction must be practical.

Make housing attainable

Expand housing supply where it is constrained, modernize infrastructure, reduce unnecessary permitting delays, and enforce laws against fraud and abusive practices. Public assistance should be targeted toward genuine need, while new construction should address the underlying shortage.

Restore the connection between work and security

Improve competition among employers, enforce wage and safety laws, expand apprenticeships, and encourage retirement savings, profit-sharing, and employee ownership.

Reduce the cost of raising a family

Improve childcare affordability, expand access to healthcare, and make family-support programs effective without creating unnecessary administrative burdens.

Stop rewarding political favoritism

Make public contracts and subsidies transparent, strengthen conflict-of-interest rules, independently audit major expenditures, and prosecute fraud regardless of the people involved.

Rebuild strategic domestic capacity

Invest in critical infrastructure, energy reliability, industrial resilience, research, and essential supply chains. Tie public support to measurable results rather than indefinite corporate dependence on government assistance.

Protect America's natural resources

Enforce environmental laws, require responsible remediation, strengthen water and infrastructure management, and evaluate resource decisions against long-term national interests.

Demand evidence and accountability in foreign policy

Define objectives, disclose costs, evaluate strategic outcomes, and ensure that military and economic commitments serve identifiable national interests.

Measure success by the lives people can build

Housing affordability, real wages, household savings, family expenses, infrastructure reliability, market competition, and the condition of public resources should matter alongside aggregate economic growth.

These reforms do not require the abolition of private enterprise or the creation of a centralized state that controls every aspect of economic life.

They require institutions capable of preventing concentrated power from becoming unaccountable power.

Trade and Diplomacy Without Permanent Hostility

Rebuilding America also means reconsidering how the United States approaches countries whose scale, resources, and productive capacity make them important to the future of the world economy. China and Russia are not interchangeable, and cooperation with either would involve serious negotiations, most of which they have already planned for. But permanent hostility should not be treated as the only available policy and those suggesting as such do so from a tower while the 30 year old finds it as the only economic opportunity and chance to find a spouse.

The United States should pursue serious, reciprocal negotiations with both countries where concrete common interests exist: preventing military escalation, maintaining reliable communication, reducing the risk of nuclear conflict, addressing shared environmental and public-health problems, and establishing predictable rules for trade. Negotiation is not trust, endorsement, or surrender. It is a way to test whether specific agreements can serve the American public while protecting U.S. security and independence.

Negotiate from the public interest

Before entering major resource or trade agreements, the government should publish clear assessments of who benefits, who bears the costs, and how the agreement affects American workers, consumers, strategic industries, and access to essential materials. Agreements should be reciprocal, transparent, enforceable, and open to periodic review—not negotiated chiefly for the benefit of politically connected firms.

Trade without giving away resilience

Trade can lower costs and create opportunity, but excessive dependence on any one country for critical goods can leave the public vulnerable. The United States should identify essential supply chains, maintain domestic capacity where national security requires it, and diversify sources through trade with multiple partners. The goal should be dependable access and fair exchange—not autarky, and not reliance so deep that a diplomatic crisis can disrupt necessities.

Replace reflexive escalation with measurable diplomacy

Military deployments, sanctions, and other coercive measures should have clearly stated objectives, legal authority, public cost estimates, and measurable conditions for success or termination. Diplomatic channels should remain open even during periods of conflict. Where negotiations can reduce the risk of war or produce verifiable commitments, they should be pursued alongside deterrence—not dismissed as weakness.

Review the costs of a permanent overseas posture

The United States should regularly assess whether each overseas base and security commitment remains necessary, effective, and worth its financial and strategic costs. Reviews should consider local conditions, the views of allies and host communities, effects on readiness at home, and whether a less costly arrangement could meet the same security objective. Any change should be deliberate and accountable, rather than treated as proof that every overseas commitment is either essential or illegitimate.

Some critics interpret the period from Operation Paperclip through the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the policies that followed as a longer story about secrecy, security institutions, and the concentration of power. Those connections are serious historical claims and should be examined through documents, testimony, and verifiable evidence. They can motivate investigation, but they should not substitute for it. The public deserves a factual accounting of how postwar programs, intelligence and defense institutions, and post-9/11 policies affected democratic oversight, civil liberties, spending, and foreign policy.

America’s strength has never depended on a single condition called isolation. Its geography has offered protection, while its prosperity and influence have also been shaped by domestic production, public investment, trade, immigration, alliances, and international engagement. The practical lesson is to avoid unnecessary entanglements without confusing withdrawal with security—and to engage abroad only when the public purpose is clear.

The objective is not to choose a foreign power as a patron or to assume that another country will act against its own interests. It is to negotiate with clear eyes, preserve American decision-making, reduce avoidable hostility, and make sure that agreements serve the people whose name is invoked to justify them. America is a very young country that has had numerous foreign powers fight, plot, and scheme for resource control.