The World Grown Smaller: Wealth Holds No Allegiance

[Tom Rinaldo]

I remember all the optimistic visions of our future generated by the first photos taken by NASA of "Spaceship Earth". No borders could be seen dividing one branch of the human family from another. With the overall advance of technology it became common place to say that the world is shrinking, we were ceasing to be separated from one another by vast spaces or unbridgeable cultural differences.

Not so long ago the concept of a homeland held near universal meaning. It was rare for even the wealthiest in the world to dismiss the importance of a homeland literal place where their physical well being was rooted and protected, and where stability was deemed important enough to support social contracts addressing the economic interests of those far less fortunate than them. It was a form of life insurance in a way, a hedging of their bets, and in return they got domestic security and active cooperation pursuing their foreign interests, often militarily.

"Foreign", "Domestic", those words increasingly have little meaning for multi-national corporations. In a world where borders are losing their significance, home is where their capital is, and patriotism fast becomes obsolete. For many of the world's richest citizens, America has treated them well. No doubt it will always hold fond memories for them. But they are now packing up to move out. The mantle of empire is shifting off of American shores and they are not waiting for the shift to be complete. There will always be some wealthy individuals held back by the sway of nostalgic emotions who will remain attached to this soil. There are less of them every decade.

The time is past for the wealthy to worry about repairing America's infrastructure or investing in its future. It is cheaper to build modern new infra structure from scratch in lands where labor is dirt cheap. The time is past for them to worry about the future skill set of America's middle class. Even as a smaller percentage of their overall population, the middle classes growing in India and China will soon dwarf the American middle class in numbers, and that is where their growing markets lie.

The wealthy class in America is focused now on maximizing their short term profits from all of their American investments. They are shifting their new investments elsewhere. And they are approaching the early edge of the next stage of their evacuation, stripping bare anything left of value here that isn't firmly fastened down. The systematic looting of America is virtually upon us.