Wealth Extraction

Income Taxes Measure Income, Not Wealth

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Recent reporting showed a large increase in individual income tax receipts. That figure reflects changes in taxable, realized income. It does not measure changes in wealth, asset accumulation, or who captured the largest economic gains. For most households, income and economic gain closely overlap. Wages and salaries make up the majority of earnings, and nearly … Read more

Oak Flat: Federal Land Policy Turns Cultural Continuity Into an Extractable Asset

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A copper deposit beneath Oak Flat in Arizona has put a public landscape, a living religious site, and a multinational mining venture on a collision course. The dispute is often framed as a clash between “jobs” and “tradition.” The record shows something more structural: a federal land transfer that enables a private firm to convert a high-value public and cultural asset into a long-term mineral revenue stream, while the community that depends on the land absorbs permanent loss.

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Foxconn: Building the Deal

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From “Eighth Wonder” to AI Megasite

In July 2017, the Trump White House staged a celebration announcing that Foxconn would build a $10 billion LCD manufacturing complex in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, promising up to 13,000 jobs and hailing it as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”1

State and local governments lined up nearly $3 billion in state tax credits and hundreds of millions more in local subsidies and infrastructure to make it happen.2

The site looks very different today.

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The Buffalo Billion Boondoggle

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Buffalo’s $959 Million Solar Factory: A Case Study in Wealth Extraction

Introduction

New York State poured $959 million into a solar-panel manufacturing plant in Buffalo, promoted as the cornerstone of the state’s Buffalo Billion and a model for high-tech economic renewal. The project was meant to create thousands of advanced-manufacturing jobs, attract new industry to western New York, and demonstrate how public investment could drive a clean-energy future.

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The Homeland Security Gold Rush: $165 Billion in “Emergency” Funding

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In July 2025, Congress passed what President Trump called the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” allocating an unprecedented $165 billion over the next decade to the Department of Homeland Security.[1] The massive funding surge, justified as essential for border security and national defense, has triggered what industry observers describe as a contractor “gold rush”—with companies flooding DHS agencies with proposals while normal competitive bidding processes are bypassed in the name of urgency.

Seven months into this spending spree, a clear pattern has emerged:

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Corpus Christi: Successful Defense Against Corporate Extraction

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After a decade of community organizing, Corpus Christi City Council rejected a massive desalination plant that would have forced residents to subsidize industrial water supply while facing drought restrictions themselves. The September 4, 2025 decision came after a contentious 13-hour meeting with multiple arrests, ending a project whose cost estimates had exploded from $160 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion.

The Great Transfer: American Government as a Wealth Extraction Machine

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The Great Transfer: American Government as a Wealth Extraction Machine

The 2025 Administration represents a brand new level of fraud and corruption. While the American government has always faced influence and capture by private interests, the 2025 administration appears to represent the most extensive and systematic version in modern history. We are witnessing the systematic transfer of all public assets—taxpayer money, public assets, government services, and democratic institutions—into the hands of selected politicians, the top 1%, and corporate special interests. This is government capture on an unprecedented scale.

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