What’s in This Week’s Issue…

Good morning. Every nation builds its future on two forces: the people it produces and the people it attracts. And right now, America is fighting over the second one.

Immigration has always powered U.S. growth, from building railroads to founding Silicon Valley.

But in recent times, immigration has turned into an economic paradox, where both welcoming and restricting immigrants come with billion-dollar consequences.

And the real question isn’t whether immigrants help or hurt America, it’s who benefits the most from keeping the argument alive.

So this week…

• 🏆 The Big Play: The Immigration Paradox and who really wins from it

• 💪 The Power Move: How you can decode this paradox and see the economy underneath

• 💵 Follow the Money: How Russia, China, and North Korea are using ChatGPT to influence you

-GEN

🏆 The Big Play

The biggest money power story of the week.

The Great Immigration Paradox: Who Really Wins From It

Immigration isn’t just about borders. It’s about balance sheets and how power moves through labor, law, and leverage.

For decades, immigrants have been blamed for stealing jobs, lowering wages, and straining welfare systems.

But that story ignores the simple truth: the U.S. economy is built on the tension between reliance and resistance, relying on immigrant labor while also publicly rejecting it.

That paradox has now reached its breaking point. Here’s why:

1. The Economic Backbone America Pretends It Doesn’t Have

Every modern economy faces the same problem: shrinking birth rates, aging populations, and too few workers to sustain growth.

So naturally, immigration is the only pressure valve left for countries:

• Immigrants now make up about 14.8% of the U.S. population, and 18% of total economic output in 2023.

• They start new businesses at twice the rate of native-born Americans, including over 40% of Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants.

• Nearly one in four doctors and one in three software engineers in the U.S. are foreign-born.

• Meanwhile, the U.S. birth rate sits at 1.6, far below replacement level.

In other words, the American economy isn’t being “invaded.” It’s being sustained.

From farms to hospitals to Silicon Valley, immigration fills jobs that would otherwise remain vacant, expands the tax base, and keeps inflation in check by preventing labor shortages in key sectors.

Yet, the public debate rarely acknowledges this interdependence because the political narrative rewards outrage more than accuracy.

Which brings us to the next piece of the puzzle.

2. The Politics of Perception: Immigration as an Industry

If the economic case for immigration is so strong, why does the political fight keep escalating?

Because immigration isn’t just a policy, it’s a performance. And behind that performance is a business model:

• The Department of Homeland Security’s budget has more than doubled since 2001, exceeding $100 billion annually.

• Private contractors and security firms like Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics earn billions supplying surveillance drones, wall materials, and detention technologies.

• Detention operators such as CoreCivic and GEO Group collectively earn billions annually, much of it through government contracts.

• Political campaigns rake in millions each election cycle by promising “border control”, whether or not they ever deliver it.

So when politicians campaign on immigration crackdowns, it isn’t just ideology, it’s economics.

The more chaos the public perceives, the more funding flows to security budgets, private contractors, and political war chests.

That’s why the debate rarely resolves because it isn’t meant to. It’s a constant source of outrage, and outrage pays better than order.

3. Winners, Losers, and the Real Cost of Immigration

Every immigration cycle produces clear winners and invisible losers:

• Winners: corporations that depend on low-cost labor, political campaigns that thrive on outrage, and contractors who profit from enforcement.

• Losers: workers, both immigrant and native-born, caught in a system that weaponizes their labor and divides their interests.

Immigrants fill the jobs no one else will take. For example, jobs in agriculture, elder care, and logistics, and they earn 15–30% less on average, often without the safety nets citizens take for granted.

Meanwhile, native-born workers are told that immigrants are to blame for wage stagnation, even though corporate consolidation and automation are the real culprits.

This divide isn’t accidental. It’s strategic. The more the working class fights itself, the less it fights the structure that extracts value from both sides.

And that’s the quiet brilliance of America’s immigration paradox: it’s not designed to be solved. It’s designed to sustain the system.

💪 The Power Moves

Playbook for understanding the game of power.

How You Can See Through the Immigration Paradox

Here’s the real lesson of immigration: it’s never just about who crosses a border. It’s about who controls the narrative that follows.

The next time a political argument dominates headlines, ask three questions:

1. Who’s profiting from the outrage? Trace the contracts, not the speeches.

2. Who’s paying for the paralysis? It’s usually the taxpayer or the consumer.

3. Who stays invisible? The workers, who keep the system functional while are blamed for its flaws.

Understanding immigration through this lens changes everything.

You stop seeing it as a moral fight and start seeing it as a flow of power, capital, and control.

The Takeaway:

Every immigration wave reshapes America’s story. But the real test isn’t how many people it lets in. It’s whether the system that profits from division ever lets go.

💵 Following the Money

Three of the wildest financial and corruption stories from around the world.

#1 - Russia, China, and North Korea are using ChatGPT to influence you. Here’s how

#2 - Why Jewels stolen in the Louvre may never be found

#3 - Man arrested in Louisiana over ties to Oct. 7 attacks in Israel

✨ Poll time!

📰 Keep Reading…