Don't Be Fooled: It's All About Power

I wrote this after a deep conversation with an old college buddy who stopped by Friday night. We talked about this for hours, and as I was reflecting on what we discussed, I realized I needed to write it down while it was still fresh. This is what I came to understand. (Yes, we both read The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman)

You've been watching the news. You've heard the rhetoric. Trump wants Greenland. He wants Canada. He wants the Panama Canal back. He's threatening Venezuela. Putin is devastating Ukraine. Xi is rattling sabers at Taiwan. You think these are political theater. You think they're about ideology, democracy, nationalism, or some other noble-sounding cause. You're wrong. Stop being fooled. It's never been about any of that. It's about power, and power flows from resources. It always has.

Let me explain how the game actually works, because I've come to understand it the way you understand breathing. You don't think about it anymore. It's just how the world operates once you see it clearly.

The fundamental truth is simple. In the modern world, the nation or corporation or individual that controls critical resources controls the planet. Money is the conversion mechanism that turns resources into power. And power, real power, is the only currency that matters in the rooms where decisions are made. This is not theory. This is not political opinion. This is observable fact.

Start with what's happening right now, in December 2025. When Trump announced that Venezuelan airspace was "closed," most people thought it was bluster, the idle talk of a reality television president. But look deeper. Venezuela sits on the world's largest proven oil reserves. Not the second largest. The largest. Over 300 billion barrels of crude waiting in the ground. The infrastructure is in ruins because of sanctions and mismanagement, but that's irrelevant. The resource is there. A country with American capital, American expertise, and American military backing could revive that oil sector in years. Suddenly Trump has leverage not just over Venezuela but over global oil markets. Over gasoline prices. Over inflation. Over the election cycle. Over who gets to be president next. That's power.

Trump has been open about this mindset for years. He once said the United States should simply “take the oil” from Iraq as the spoils of war, meaning permanent occupation of oil fields with American troops holding the infrastructure for American benefit. He was not talking about rebuilding Iraqi society or lowering prices for American families. He was talking about seizing a resource base that could be handed to the people who already hold power and wealth.

But oil is yesterday's story. Everyone knows oil is important. The real game, the one that determines who controls the 21st century, involves materials almost no one has heard of. Rare earth elements. These aren't rare in a romantic sense. They're metals with names like neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, lithium, and cerium. They seem like academic curiosities until you understand what they actually do. They're the crystalline skeleton of every advanced technology on Earth.

Your cell phone needs them. Your electric car won't run without them. The F-35 fighter jets that cost taxpayers 1.7 trillion dollars won't fly without them. The missiles that guard Taiwan need them. The wind turbines that generate renewable energy need them. The artificial intelligence chips that are about to reshape human civilization absolutely require them. They're not optional. They're foundational. Whoever controls the supply of these elements controls the future of technology, energy, military capability, and economic power.

China figured this out decades ago. Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern China, said something in 1992 that revealed the entire game. "The Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths." That statement contained the entire geopolitical future in seventeen words. China controls 48 percent of global reserves. But here's the important part. China controls 60 to 70 percent of global production and 85 to 90 percent of global refining capacity. Control the refining and you control the world. China realized this and invested heavily while the West wasn't paying attention. Now Beijing can weaponize access to rare earths. When tensions rise with other nations, they tighten the supply. When they want leverage in negotiations, rare earth restrictions appear. It's coercion without firing a shot.

This is why Trump wants Canada. Canada holds the largest rare earth reserves in North America. The Nechalacho project is coming online, ready to produce thousands of tonnes annually. Suddenly, the United States might not need to beg Beijing for neodymium. Suddenly there's an alternative. Suddenly America has negotiating power it currently lacks. Let’s also not forget about the Northwest Passage…

This is why Trump wants Greenland. Beneath the ice sits between 18 and 20 percent of global rare earth reserves. The Tanbreez project has returned results that make geologists weep. Sixty-five meter sections grading 0.55 percent total rare earth oxides from the surface, with readings of 25.5 percent heavy rare earth oxides and gallium oxide suitable for semiconductors and solar panels. These deposits were lightly explored and barely developed. A nation controlling Greenland controls a significant portion of what the world needs to build the future. Trump's people understand that the moment they control those resources, they control the leverage over Europe, over supply chains, over the entire global economy.

The Panama Canal. Why would Trump suddenly care about the Panama Canal again? Everyone said China controlled the ports at either end. That claim turned out to be exaggerated, but the real reason for the interest is simpler. The Canal processes 40 percent of all American container shipping. More importantly, it processes the shipping of manufactured goods from Asia to North America. It's not really about Chinese control. It's about American control. If the United States runs the Canal, it can influence pricing, routing, timing of goods, and therefore influence the global economy. Control the chokepoints and you control the system.

But here's where it gets darker. Look at what Putin actually did in Ukraine. Not what the media says. Look at the actual territorial objectives. Russia didn't invade randomly. Russia invaded the regions richest in minerals and energy. The Donetsk region accounts for 80 percent of Ukraine's conventional oil, gas, and coal reserves. Ukraine's critical minerals, its 22 rare-metal formations, its lithium, tantalum, cesium, and strontium deposits, are concentrated in exactly the territories Russia occupied. Within months of the invasion, Russia controlled over 12.4 trillion dollars worth of Ukrainian mineral and gas reserves. Over twelve trillion dollars. That's not a war for ideology or national security or protecting Russian-speakers. That's resource acquisition. That's the naked, unadorned grabbing of planetary wealth.

Putin then offered Trump a deal. He said Russia would allow American access to those rare earth metals in Ukraine's annexed areas. Think about that carefully. Russia controls the territory. Russia is saying to Trump, make a deal with me, and I can deliver Ukrainian rare earths to you without those resources going to Europe. Suddenly Trump becomes the intermediary between Russia and Western supply chains. Suddenly Trump holds power over the entire global rare earth market. Suddenly he becomes indispensable. This is the transaction. This is how it works. No one actually cares about the Ukrainian people. No one cares about Ukrainian sovereignty. They care about the metals in the ground.

Now look at Afghanistan. When the American military withdrew in 2021, everyone mourned the "failure" of the nation-building mission. Everyone talked about the tragedy. But Afghanistan sits on an estimated 2.2 billion tonnes of iron ore, 60 million tonnes of copper, 183 million tonnes of aluminum, and vast reserves of rare earth elements. Lithium, particularly. One of the most crucial materials for battery technology. When the Taliban took over, China didn't hesitate. Beijing immediately moved in with billion-dollar mining contracts for the Mes Aynak copper mine, one of the world's largest undeveloped deposits. China now controls a dominant share of extraction in Afghanistan's most promising rare earth and mineral areas.

That wasn't an accident. China wasn't waiting around hoping Afghanistan would become stable. China wanted that mineral wealth, understood the strategic importance, and moved decisively once the American military left and created the opening. They're already integrating Afghan minerals into their supply chains through Pakistan and Central Asian corridors. They're already deepening Beijing's geopolitical dominance. The United States, meanwhile, sat back and watched. For all the talk about China's Belt and Road Initiative being imperialism, at least China is actually acquiring resources and building strategic advantage. The West talks about values and democracy while its competitors just take what they need.

This brings us to Taiwan. Xi Jinping wants Taiwan. Everyone knows he wants Taiwan. But why? Xi doesn't want Taiwan because of some ethnic nationalist fever dream about reunification. He wants Taiwan because TSMC is there. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces 60 percent of the world's semiconductors. Not some semiconductors. Sixty percent. Of all semiconductors. TSMC produces 90 percent of the most advanced chips on Earth. The chips in the F-35 fighters. The chips in artificial intelligence systems. The chips that will define every technology of the coming century. These chips are manufactured in Taiwan by a single company.

Right now, China cannot make these chips. Despite decades of investment, despite massive domestic programs, China still lags far behind. China controls just 1 percent of advanced 7-nanometer chip capacity while Taiwan controls 69 percent. That single percentage point disadvantage represents a strategic vulnerability so profound it threatens everything Beijing is trying to build. Xi has watched the United States impose sanctions on Chinese technology companies. He's watched the West deny China access to the most advanced semiconductors. He's watched American companies divest from Chinese markets due to national security concerns.

From Xi's perspective, the solution is obvious. Seize Taiwan. Seize TSMC. Suddenly China has access to cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing that took Taiwan decades to build. Suddenly the bottleneck disappears. Suddenly China has the technological capability to compete militarily and economically. Yes, there would be military risks. Yes, there would be economic disruption. But from Xi's cost-benefit analysis, acquiring TSMC intact is worth the gamble because TSMC is not just a company. It's the crown jewel of technological dominance in the 21st century.

So Xi is applying pressure gradually. He's upgrading military capabilities toward what he calls the "Centennial Military Building Goal of 2027." He's conducting war games. He's making statements about inevitable reunification. He's using the three warfares strategy. That means manipulating public opinion in Taiwan, applying psychological pressure, and using legal mechanisms to undermine Taiwanese confidence in their own democracy. He's not moving toward invasion because the moment invasion happens, TSMC production shuts down and becomes worthless. So he's trying to coerce Taiwan into submission. He's trying to convince Taiwan that resistance is futile. He wants TSMC intact and operational, with engineers compliant and producing chips.

But Xi has a timing problem. The United States is now divesting TSMC capacity away from Taiwan. TSMC is building advanced fabrication plants in Arizona, planning facilities in Germany and Japan. The more TSMC's production shifts away from Taiwan, the less valuable a Taiwanese conquest becomes. Xi knows this. His window is closing. If he's going to move, he needs to move while TSMC's irreplaceable capacity is still concentrated on the island. That's why the rhetoric has intensified. That's why the military posturing is escalating. That's why rare earth restriction announcements are being paired with hints about Taiwan. It's a race against time to seize control before the strategic advantage evaporates.

But here's what almost everyone misses. All these power players, Trump and Putin and Xi and every oligarch running every developed nation/company/hedge fund/family office, they're not coordinating. They don't have secret meetings where they plan global dominance together. They don't need to. They're all atoms of greed moving in the same magnetic field. They're all responding to identical incentives. They all see the same resources. They all understand that whoever controls rare earths, semiconductors, oil, minerals, and chokepoints controls the future. So they all move toward those resources independently. The transactions that move wealth and power just happen because the gates holding them back have eroded.

And the gates have completely eroded. The United States Supreme Court once served as a check on corporate power. Citizens United destroyed that. Now money flows directly into politics as "speech." Corporations control electoral outcomes. Lower courts have been captured by similar dark money networks. Congress itself no longer functions as an institution. It's gridlocked intentionally because gridlock prevents regulation. When Congress can't pass meaningful legislation, corporations get to do whatever they want. It's not a bug in the system. It's the intended outcome. Dysfunctional government is easier to control than responsive government.

So when Trump talks about needing to acquire resources, needing to take over geographic regions, needing to control chokepoints, he's not really talking to voters anymore. He's talking to oligarchs. He's saying here's how I'll make us richer, here's how I'll consolidate our power, here's how I'll grab the resources the rest of the world also wants. Every transaction he negotiates benefits him by increasing his power and status. That's the entire decision calculus. It's not complicated. It's not hidden. It's just transactional. As long as a transaction increases power, Trump will do it.

Consider the people around him. The collective net worth of Trump's Cabinet is estimated at over 460 billion dollars. When you include Trump himself at 5.1 billion dollars and all the other appointees, you're looking at a government run by the richest people the United States has ever assembled. Before this administration, the wealthiest cabinet was Trump's own first cabinet at 3.2 billion dollars. Biden's cabinet was worth 118 million dollars. Obama's second-term cabinet was worth about 2.8 billion dollars. This current cabinet represents something genuinely unprecedented in American history. It's not government of the people anymore. It's government of the ultra-wealthy, by the ultra-wealthy, for the ultra-wealthy.

The richest person on that list is Elon Musk with a net worth estimated at between 450 to 500 billion dollars depending on daily market movements. His holdings include 15 to 19.7 percent of Tesla, roughly 42 percent of SpaceX, more than 50 percent of xAI, and controlling stakes in Neuralink and The Boring Company. Musk wasn’t just an unofficial member of the Cabinet. He was co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency. From that position, he could influence government spending in ways that directly benefit his companies. David Sacks holds the title of White House AI and Crypto Czar. He's a reported billionaire with government ethics waivers that allow him to maintain significant holdings in companies even as he makes government decisions. His policy recommendations on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence will directly affect which companies prosper and which ones struggle. Pete Hegseth, as Secretary of Defense, has his attorney Tim Parlatore in a dual role that creates obvious conflicts of interest. Companies seeking defense contracts have to wonder how those decisions might benefit Hegseth's financial interests.

This is not corruption in the sense of hidden wrongdoing. It's just how the system works now. The gates have eroded so completely that the oligarchs don't even have to hide it anymore.

The genius of what's happening is that oligarchs have convinced working-class Americans they are their saviors while simultaneously taking money directly out of their pockets. The "Big Beautiful Bill" that just passed gives the top 0.1 percent of Americans an average tax cut of 309,000 dollars and makes those cuts permanent. Meanwhile, starting in 2029, Americans making 30,000 dollars or less will see tax increases. Healthcare programs get decimated. Social security faces threats. The very safety net that working Americans depend on gets shredded to finance tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. And the working people who voted for this? They think they're sticking it to the elites. They think they're taking their country back. They've been convinced that their economic pain comes from immigrants or foreign nations or the deep state rather than the fact that the entire political system is designed to extract wealth from them and concentrate it upward.

This is evil genius. True evil genius. It works because intellectuals have largely been neutralized. Universities used to be the places where people could see the system clearly and then mobilize others. The Civil War era had progressive intellectuals who could explain what was happening and move masses to action. The Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century had intellectuals fighting monopolies and corruption. The New Deal had people like Harry Hopkins and Rexford Tugwell who could articulate a vision of something different. They didn't call it democracy or capitalism. They called it a new social order. They convinced Americans that it was possible to build something better.

But today's oligarchs aren't stupid enough to let that happen again. They've attacked universities systematically. They've frozen research funding. They've canceled grants. They've used ICE to harass academic dissidents. They've cut over 12 billion dollars from university budgets, forcing institutions to freeze hiring, lay off staff, and halt clinical trials. They've targeted prestigious universities with funding cuts discovered through social media humiliation campaigns. They're not trying to reform universities. They're trying to make sure intellectual resistance becomes impossible.

Because they know from history what happens when intellectuals wake up the masses. They know that when educated people can see the system clearly and communicate it effectively, movements emerge that threaten oligarchic power. So the strategy is simple. Control universities, prevent intellectuals from functioning as a counter-force, keep the masses convinced that their problems are external rather than structural, and maintain the transactional system that flows wealth upward.

The most stunning part of this entire thing is that it's not really hidden. It's operating in plain sight. Trump literally told you he was transactional. He built his entire brand on being a deal maker who does whatever transaction benefits him. He appointed the richest Cabinet in American history. Billionaires sitting in government making decisions that benefit billionaires. It's not even subtle. The facts are there for anyone willing to look.

And if you try to point this out, if you try to mobilize against it, you'll discover that the entire structure is designed to prevent your resistance. The courts won't help you because they're captured. Congress won't help you because it's dysfunctional by design. The media won't help you because the same oligarchs that control government also control media corporations. Universities, which might produce intellectuals that could articulate resistance, are being defunded and ideologically purged. You're left with no institutional mechanism to even understand what's happening to you, let alone change it.

This is why Trump wants what he wants. Not because of some grand vision of American greatness. Because control of resources equals control of power, and power is the only goal. Every territorial grab, every resource seizure, every transaction that increases his influence is a win. Venezuela's oil, Greenland's rare earths, the Panama Canal's chokepoint, Canadian mineral wealth, Ukrainian minerals, Afghan resources, control of Taiwan's semiconductor dominance. These aren't separate issues. They're all moves in the same game. They're all transactions that increase power for those who already have it and decrease options for everyone else.

The working people who support him believe he's fighting for them. The oligarchs he actually serves (even the Christian Nationalist leaders whose power comes from donations) know he's fighting for himself, and they're aligned with him as long as his victory is their victory. And at the moment, his victory is absolutely their victory. The wealth extraction will accelerate. The power concentration will deepen. The gates will erode further. And the masses will be convinced that this is necessary, that this is leadership, that this is strength.

You are not being stupid if you didn't see this clearly before. The system is designed to obscure these realities. But once you see it, you can't unsee it. Power flows from resources. Resources are finite. Those who control them control the world. Right now, the oligarchs are winning because they understand the game and they're playing it ruthlessly while everyone else is arguing about whether democracy is real or whether Trump is actually their savior.

Stop being fooled. The system was never designed for you. It was designed to extract from you while convincing you that you're free.