Financial Colonialism: The Next Phase of the Great American Grift

The Next Bubble is You: How Capitalism is Turning the Public Into Its Final Commodity

The recent trillion-dollar tech stock crash, led by Nvidia, was predictable to anyone paying attention. As AI hype reached fever pitch, those in the know—like Nancy Pelosi, who conveniently offloaded Nvidia stock shortly before the crash—cashed out, leaving retail investors to absorb the loss. The pattern is unmistakable. Those with insider access, political leverage, or the ability to manipulate market sentiment always walk away richer, whilst everyday people, lured in by the illusion of opportunity, are left holding the bag. What we’re seeing isn’t a failure of capitalism—it’s capitalism functioning exactly as intended. Retail investors have become the new colonised class, exploited, drained, and discarded whilst the financial elite amass ever-greater fortunes.

Capitalism, much like historical colonialism, is fundamentally a system of resource extraction. Once, it was land, labour, and raw materials that were siphoned away from colonised nations and funnelled into imperial centres. Now, the same extraction occurs in financial markets, only the commodity being drained is the accumulated wealth of ordinary people. The methods have evolved, but the mechanisms remain the same: grand promises of shared prosperity, structural dependencies that ensure most will fail, and an elite class that profits from the inevitable collapse. Where European empires once controlled economies through territorial expansion, today’s ruling class operates through financialised speculation, ensuring wealth never flows downwards, only upwards.

Retail investors are consistently sold a lie. The dream of upward mobility, of getting in early on the next big thing, is dangled in front of them like a carrot. Just as colonial subjects were once promised that adopting Western economic systems would elevate them, today’s investors (aka, speculators, gamblers, etc.) are fed the myth that anyone can become a billionaire if they play the markets right. In reality, retail investors exist to provide liquidity for the ultra-wealthy, allowing them to cash out before everything implodes. They shoulder all the risk whilst hedge funds, venture capitalists, and corporate insiders manipulate prices behind the scenes. No matter how many people repeat the phrase ‘diamond hands’ or swear they’ll hold, the outcome is always the same—the insiders win, the retail traders lose, and the cycle resets with a new bubble.

Venture capital operates like financial colonialism, carving out new ‘territories’ to extract wealth under the guise of innovation. First, a new industry or asset class is hyped beyond reason—whether it's crypto, NFTs, meme stocks, or AI. Once retail investors are drawn in, early backers and insiders offload their holdings, ensuring they exit at peak valuation. When the inevitable collapse comes, the losses are socialised, but the profits remain firmly in private hands. And just like the colonisers of old, when one market is exhausted, they simply move on to the next, leaving devastation in their wake. Tech crashes, AI collapses, meme stocks die—none of it matters to the financial class because they have already extracted their wealth.

The following list documents the worst examples of this modern extraction economy. These are not anomalies or bad luck stories; they are systemic. They reveal how capitalism is not failing but succeeding in its core function—transferring wealth upwards while selling the masses an illusion of participation. Each of these cases, from FTX to WeWork, from the Trump meme coin to the Nvidia sell-off, follows the same colonial logic: hype the land of opportunity, let the settlers rush in, then strip them of everything and move on.

The Terrible Ten:

1. WeWork (2019)

• Who Benefited?

  • Adam Neumann (Founder) → Cashed out with $1.7 billion, despite the company’s collapse.

  • SoftBank → Initially lost billions but gained control of WeWork and leveraged assets to mitigate losses.

  • Neumann’s inner circle → High salaries, stock cash-outs, and bonuses before the IPO disaster.

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Investors & Employees → Stock options became worthless after the failed IPO.

  • SoftBank Shareholders → SoftBank bailed out WeWork with billions, absorbing huge losses.

2. Theranos (2015-2022)

• Who Benefited?

  • Elizabeth Holmes & Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani → Lived luxuriously for years on investor money.

  • Wealthy Investors (before the collapse) → Many early investors got government connections and influence out of it, even if they lost money later.

  • Board Members (Kissinger, Mattis, etc.) → Used Theranos to build prestige and connections.

• Who Lost?

  • Investors & Walgreens → Lost $9 billion after the fraud was exposed.

  • Patients → Many got incorrect medical results that could have killed them.

3. FTX / Sam Bankman-Fried (2022)

• Who Benefited?

  • SBF & His Inner Circle → Funneled customer deposits into real estate, political donations, and luxury lifestyles.

  • Democrat & Republican PACs → SBF was the second-largest donor to the Democratic Party in 2022, plus millions went to GOP-aligned PACs. No refunds given.

  • Media & Influencers → Paid for glowing press coverage (e.g., the NYT puff piece on SBF).

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Investors & Crypto Users → $8+ billion in customer funds vanished.

  • Bahamas Residents → Promised economic development from FTX, got nothing.

4. The Trump Meme Coin ($TRUMP) (2025)

• Who Benefited?

  • Trump & His Allies → Controlled 80% of the token supply, making billions.

  • Early Buyers (Insiders & MAGA Influencers) → Pumped the coin, cashed out before the dump.

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Investors → Bought in late, stuck holding a worthless asset.

  • Crypto Newbies & True Believers → Many Trump supporters bought in thinking it was a long-term investment.

5. Meta’s Metaverse (2021-2023)

• Who Benefited?

  • Mark Zuckerberg → Cashed out billions in stock before the Metaverse pivot failed.

  • Corporate Contractors → Got paid to build a product that no one would use.

  • Hype Investors → Some early institutional investors rode the wave, sold before the collapse.

• Who Lost?

  • Meta Shareholders → Over $100 billion wasted on VR development.

  • Developers & Employees → Thousands laid off after the Metaverse pivot flopped.

6. OpenAI & the DeepSeek Panic (2025)

• Who Benefited?

  • Tech CEOs & Hedge Funds → AI hype drove up stock prices, allowing big investors to sell at peak valuation.

  • China’s AI Sector (DeepSeek) → Forced U.S. companies into a reactionary panic, leading to bad investments.

• Who Lost?

  • Nvidia, Microsoft, Google Investors → Lost $1 trillion in combined market value due to overinflated AI hype.

  • The Public → More job automation, higher misinformation risks, and an AI bubble waiting to pop.

7. Nikola (2020)

• Who Benefited?

  • Trevor Milton (Founder) → Cashed out $100+ million in stock before being convicted of fraud.

  • Wall Street Banks → Took Nikola public through a SPAC, making millions in fees.

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Investors → The stock went from $93 to $1, wiping out billions.

  • Regulators & Taxpayers → The SEC had to chase Milton after the damage was done.

8. Luna/Terra Crypto Collapse (2022)

• Who Benefited?

  • Do Kwon (Founder) → Allegedly moved billions offshore before the collapse.

  • Crypto Market Makers → Early insiders shorted Luna before the crash, profiting off destruction.

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Investors → $60 billion in wealth erased overnight.

  • Crypto Exchanges → Binance and others faced huge liquidity crises due to the collapse.

9. GameStop & The Meme Stock Bubble (2021)

• Who Benefited?

  • Wall Street Hedge Funds (on the short side) → Many hedged their losses early.

  • Influencers (like Roaring Kitty) → Built personal brands, made millions off speaking engagements, books, and media deals.

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Investors (Late Buyers) → Bought in at peak prices and lost everything when the stock crashed.

  • Some Hedge Funds (like Melvin Capital) → Lost billions on bad bets against GameStop, but those at the top walked away rich anyway.

10. Juicero (2017)

• Who Benefited?

  • Founder Doug Evans → Cashed out millions from VC funding based on hype.

  • Silicon Valley VCs (at the beginning) → Early investors profited before the scam was exposed.

• Who Lost?

  • Retail Customers → Spent $400 on a useless machine that added no value over squeezing by hand.

  • Later-Stage Investors → Those who bought in believing it was the next "iPhone of juicing" lost everything.

Summary: Who Really Profits in These Scams?

Across these 10 biggest financialised scams, a clear pattern emerges:

1. The Founders & Insiders Always Win → They cash out early.

2. The Media & Influencers Get Paid → They help pump the hype.

3. Politicians & PACs Benefit → FTX, Trump’s coin, and even Theranos had deep political ties.

4. Retail Investors Always Lose → They buy in late and get wiped out.

Analysis …

None of this is accidental. The ten cases in this list aren’t isolated failures or miscalculations—they are capitalism functioning exactly as designed. Every one of these financial disasters follows the same pattern: a small group of insiders generates hype around a supposedly revolutionary opportunity, venture capitalists pour in speculative money, and once retail investors are drawn in, the people who started the game quietly cash out. The collapse is inevitable, but by the time the public realises what has happened, the wealth has already been extracted and redistributed to those who were never at risk in the first place.

Capitalism is, at its core, a system of extraction. The logic that fuelled colonial empires—the seizure of land, the theft of resources, and the enslavement of entire populations for economic gain—has not disappeared. It has simply adapted. Where once gold, oil, and cotton were the commodities of empire, today’s assets are speculative: stocks, crypto, real estate bubbles, and AI-driven market manipulation. The method of exploitation has changed, but the structure remains the same: those at the top manufacture a sense of opportunity, ensuring the masses believe they can participate, when in reality, their only function is to provide liquidity for the powerful to exit safely.

Retail investors are, in this system, the new colonised class. Just as colonial subjects were told that Western economic systems would bring them prosperity whilst being simultaneously exploited for their labour and land, retail investors are promised that they, too, can achieve financial success if they just ‘play the game’ correctly. But the game is rigged. The entire system is designed to extract wealth from them, whether through fees, market manipulation, or cycles of boom and bust that ensure retail investors always buy in late and sell at a loss. The illusion of fair access to financial markets is just that—an illusion. There are no retail investors making the kind of generational wealth that hedge funds and tech billionaires accumulate. It simply does not happen.

This is a form of colonialism without armies, where the commodity being extracted is speculative wealth rather than natural resources. Venture capital creates a new ‘territory’ in the form of an industry or asset class, declares it to be the next frontier, and lures settlers—retail investors—into staking their claim. But just like the settler-colonial projects of the past, this promise of ownership is a lie. The wealth that is extracted does not remain in the hands of those who buy in; it is siphoned upwards. When the bubble inevitably bursts, the cycle begins again with a new ‘territory’—crypto, meme stocks, AI, whatever comes next. The extraction continues, and the financial elite move on to the next frontier, leaving behind financial devastation much as colonial powers once left behind destabilised nations.

If capitalism is simply a mechanism for extracting wealth from the many to enrich the few, then the solution cannot be a ‘better’ version of capitalism—it must be an alternative system altogether. That means moving away from the logic of infinite growth and speculation, and towards matristic, communitarian economies that prioritise real value creation over artificial scarcity. Shared wealth, not extraction. Mutual aid, not speculative hoarding. Sustainable economies, not endless cycles of financial destruction. The longer we buy into the myth that capitalism can be reformed to work for everyone, the longer we remain trapped in a system that exists only to strip us of everything. The choice is clear: either we build a world beyond capitalism, or we remain the colonised class in an economic system designed to ensure we never escape.

The Pivot …

The grifts we’ve seen so far—FTX, WeWork, Theranos, the meme stock bubbles—are small-scale compared to what’s coming. Those were test runs, warm-ups for the real act: the wholesale auctioning off of public goods under the guise of ‘market-based solutions.’ With the new administration, the push to privatise everything—healthcare, Social Security, public education, utilities, even the fundamental infrastructure that keeps society functional—is well underway. This isn’t just another scam; it’s the ultimate wealth transfer, the final act in the neoliberal project. The state itself is being stripped for parts, and what’s left will be owned by a handful of private entities with no obligation to serve the public, only to generate profit.

Privatisation has always been sold as a way to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and foster innovation. In reality, it’s a mechanism for the extraction of public wealth, transferring what was collectively owned into the hands of private investors who will strip it down, extract as much value as possible, and leave the wreckage behind. The examples are everywhere—private prisons that lock people up for corporate profit, charter schools that drain public funds while producing worse outcomes, water systems handed over to corporations that jack up rates and let infrastructure decay. Now, they want to do this with healthcare, with Medicare, with Social Security. They want to turn the last vestiges of the public good into an open-air casino, where billionaires gamble with the lives and futures of millions.

If this is allowed to happen, the losses will be catastrophic. All of the financial collapses of the last few decades—2008, the dot-com bust, the crypto crashes—will look trivial in comparison. What happened in Russia in the 90s, when oligarchs looted state industries after the fall of the USSR, would be a mere prologue to the economic devastation that would follow full privatisation of the public sector in the US. Millions of people would be priced out of healthcare overnight, as access to basic medical treatment becomes a luxury item. Retirement savings, which are already precarious, would be thrown into the stock market, where Wall Street could drain them at will. Schools would become fully pay-to-play, ensuring that education is only for those who can afford it, cementing generational inequality. And as public utilities are sold off, the price of water, electricity, and even access to roads could be dictated not by need, but by profit margins.

This isn’t an economic policy shift—it’s a controlled demolition of the last remaining barriers to full corporate rule (aka, real fascism). The goal isn’t to make the system more efficient; it’s to remove any obstacle that prevents billionaires and corporations from extracting every last cent from the public. If the last few decades have proven anything, it’s that these people do not build—they strip-mine, they asset-strip, they extract and move on. The privatisation push is not about creating better services; it’s about making sure that everything necessary for survival becomes a tollbooth, a subscription, a walled garden where access is determined by wealth alone. This is the “art of the steal,” the final phase of financial colonialism—when even the air you breathe will have a price tag.

Final thoughts …

From the very beginning, the American press has served the ruling class. The corporate colonies were built on propaganda, with publishing magnates shaping the narrative to serve those in power. The revolution may have changed who sat in the highest seats, but it did not alter the fundamental reality: the news has always been a tool of the elite. Whether it was the Hearsts and Pulitzers of the past or the Bezoses, Sulzbergers, and Murdochs of today, the machinery of the press has remained in the hands of the wealthy, ensuring that the stories told always reinforce their interests. The consolidation of media ownership into fewer and fewer hands has only made this worse. Now, whether you're watching a network news broadcast, scrolling through a social media feed, or flipping through the pages of a major paper, every second of information is curated by multinational corporations and billionaire dynasties whose primary goal is not to inform, but to manufacture consent.

As the Tangerine Tyrant settles into power, we are already seeing how the media is adjusting itself to his reign. Headlines have softened their language, shifting from describing the horrors of his last administration to normalising the return of his authoritarian tendencies. Stories of corruption and cronyism are buried beneath distractions, whilst the most pressing economic concerns—the wholesale auctioning off of public goods—are reframed as ‘market-based solutions’ by corporate-friendly pundits. If history has taught us anything, it’s that the mainstream press will not hold power to account when that power serves their bottom line. We cannot rely on billionaires to tell the truth about a system they benefit from.

That means it is more critical than ever to seek out news from reliable, independent sources—places not beholden to corporate shareholders, political donors, or the access-driven incentives of legacy media. We must be vigilant in where we get our information, questioning who benefits from the framing of every major story. I will do my best to continue deep dives into the areas where I have expertise, exposing the grift where I see it, for as long as I am able. These next few years will be defined by an unprecedented consolidation of wealth and power, and the only way to resist is to see it clearly. The narrative is theirs to control—unless we break it ourselves.