The Universal Wealth Extraction Playbook

The same 5-step strategy used across every industry to transfer wealth from working families to billionaires. Click each step to see how different companies executed the identical playbook.

The Pattern Is Universal
Every major corporation follows the same systematic approach. The industries change, the decades vary, but the 5-step wealth extraction playbook remains identical across manufacturing, retail, technology, healthcare, steel, and agriculture.
This isn't about "bad companies" or "market forces" - it's a deliberate, replicable strategy for concentrating wealth.
The Total Cost of Systematic Extraction
$2,795
Per Worker Annually
Corporate subsidies alone - before adding privatized service premiums
$30,000-70,000
Total Family Premium
Annual excess costs across all extraction sectors combined
3,900%
Healthcare Premium
US families pay $6,000-8,000 vs. Europeans paying $200-400
1,875%
Education Premium
$35,551 annually vs. $1,800 in efficient systems

American families pay massive premiums while billionaires extract wealth through the same systematic process across every essential sector of the economy.

Step 1: Eliminate Competition
Buy out competitors, lobby for regulations that favor large players, create barriers to entry, or use predatory pricing to drive out rivals. The goal is market dominance through consolidation.
General Electric Walmart Amazon UnitedHealthcare Steel Industry Agriculture
Jack Welch's "#1 or #2 rule": sell or close any business unit not dominating its market 🎯 CEIBS Analysis Enter small towns and price below cost until competitors close 🎯 Federal Reserve Sell below cost for decades to eliminate competition 🎯 FTC Analysis Three companies control 80% of health insurance market 🏛️ AMA Report 1901: JP Morgan created instant 67% market share through consolidation 🎯 Steel History 4 companies control 85% of beef industry 🎯 Farm Action
Sold 200+ businesses (1981-1990) to eliminate competitors 🎯 CEIBS Strategic Analysis Use supplier power to get prices local stores can't match 🎯 Walmart History Use third-party seller data to create competing Amazon products 🔴 WSJ Investigation Block competitors through vertical integration 🎯 Brookings Analysis 1957: Blocked Bethlehem-Youngstown merger to prevent challenge to US Steel 🎯 Steel M&A History 70% fewer hog farmers since mid-1990s while 4 companies control slaughter 🎯 NFFC
Cut 20+ business units including housewares, coal mining, consumer electronics 🎯 CEIBS Business Strategy Create "retail extinction events" - 47% small business sales loss after arrival 🏛️ Federal Reserve Analysis Acquire potential competitors before they become threats 🎯 FTC Acquisitions Change Healthcare processes 1 in 3 patient records - monopoly power 🎯 STAT Analysis Post-1980s: Wave of bankruptcies (33 companies) led to consolidation 🎯 Steel Bankruptcy Analysis 17,000 cattle ranchers go out of business annually since 1980 🎯 NFFC Data
Step 2: Create Dependency
Make communities, workers, and customers dependent on the company while destroying alternatives. Force people into situations where they have no choice but to accept the company's terms.
General Electric Walmart Amazon UnitedHealthcare Steel Industry Agriculture
Eliminated lifetime employment: "job for life" became "transactional relationship" 🎯 NPR Analysis Become the only option in communities after destroying alternatives 🎯 NPR Rural Impact Prime membership locks in customer loyalty 🎯 Amazon Strategy Employer-based insurance prevents job mobility 🎯 KFF Analysis Made entire communities dependent on steel plants 🎯 YSU Research Contract farming eliminates farmer autonomy 🎯 NFFC
Created fear through "rank and yank" system - fire bottom 10% annually 🎯 NPR Rank Analysis Force rural residents to travel 60+ miles round-trip when competitors close 🎯 NPR Grocery Crisis AWS makes businesses dependent on Amazon infrastructure 🎯 AWS Dominance Emergency care creates captive market 🎯 Commonwealth Fund Pension and healthcare promises created worker dependency 🎯 Steel Worker Benefits Seed/chemical monopolies force farmers into input dependency 🎯 Agricultural Input Control
"Ideally, you'd have every plant on a barge" - Jack Welch threat 🎯 The Week Analysis Create "food deserts" - 76 counties now without single grocery store 🎯 NPR Food Desert Marketplace dependency despite competing against sellers 🎯 FTC Platform Analysis Complex networks limit patient choice 🎯 Peterson-KFF Tracker "Not enough seats in the lifeboat" - threatened plant closures 🎯 US Steel Labor Vertical integration: own feed, breeding, slaughter - farmers become contractors 🎯 UCS Analysis
Step 3: Extract Maximum Value
Charge whatever the market can bear, cut costs through wage suppression, use financial engineering, and squeeze maximum profit from captive customers, workers, and suppliers.
General Electric Walmart Amazon UnitedHealthcare Steel Industry Agriculture
Fired 100,000+ workers in first few years as CEO 🎯 Perfect Union Average wage $9.48/hour - below poverty line for families 🏛️ Senate GAO Force suppliers to accept razor-thin margins 🔴 WSJ Profits up 400% since 2014 while denying 1 in 3 claims 🔵 Jacobin 1982: Got tax concessions for steel then used $6.1B to buy Marathon Oil instead 🎯 US Steel History Cargill: $1 billion+ quarterly profits during global food shortages (2008) 🎯 Cargill Performance
1990: $10 billion stock buyback - largest in history at the time 🎯 Perfect Union Buybacks 150 jobs created but at starvation wages requiring government assistance 🏛️ CNBC Worker Analysis Increase seller fees and advertising costs after creating dependency 🔴 WSJ Fee Analysis Family premiums rose 52% since 2014, far exceeding inflation 🏛️ KFF Benefits Survey Executive focus on stock prices over long-term investment 🎯 Engineering.com Analysis Price fixing conspiracies to gouge consumers 🎯 UCS Investigation
Replaced full-time workers with contractors (lower wages, no benefits) 🎯 LinkedIn Welch Analysis Price premium in areas without competition after driving out alternatives 🎯 Fed Reserve Pricing Surveillance and quotas for warehouse workers 🔵 Guardian Worker Conditions Administrative costs 12-18% vs. 2-3% for Medicare 🏛️ PolitiFact Admin Costs Refused to adopt new technologies that competitors used 🎯 Steel Technology Gap Environmental costs externalized (371M gallons toxic wastewater from Tyson alone) 🎯 UCS Environmental Impact
Step 4: Socialize Losses
Get taxpayers to cover risks, cleanup costs, worker subsidies, and infrastructure while keeping profits private. Force the public to bear the costs of corporate decisions.
General Electric Walmart Amazon UnitedHealthcare Steel Industry Agriculture
1985: Sold locomotive technology to China for $400M - gave up future exports 🎯 RBTUS Analysis $6.2 billion annually in government assistance for Walmart workers 🏛️ Senate GAO $4+ billion in taxpayer subsidies and tax breaks 🎯 Good Jobs First Emergency room costs shifted to public hospitals 🎯 Commonwealth Fund Taxpayer-funded tax breaks diverted from steel into oil speculation 🎯 US Steel Concessions Mercury poisoning from Cargill grain killed thousands in Iraq - costs to public health 🎯 Cargill History
Technology transfer deals helped China become GE competitor 🎯 RBTUS Technology Taxpayers provide food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance for full-time workers 🏛️ CNBC Worker Benefits Uses public infrastructure while avoiding local taxes 🎯 ITEP Tax Avoidance High-risk patients shifted to Medicare/Medicaid 🎯 Peterson-KFF Tracker Environmental cleanup costs pushed to taxpayers 🏛️ EPA Superfund Water pollution cleanup costs pushed to taxpayers 🎯 UCS Environmental Costs
Environmental cleanup costs pushed to taxpayers 🏛️ EPA GE Cleanup $7.8 billion total in federal subsidies and tax breaks 🏛️ MSNBC Subsidies Worker safety costs externalized to healthcare system 🔵 WaPo Worker Safety Medical research funded by taxpayers, profits privatized 🏛️ NIH Research Funding When companies went bankrupt, pension obligations dumped on government 🏛️ PBGC Bailouts Agricultural research funded by taxpayers, profits privatized 🏛️ USDA Research
Step 5: Privatize Profits
Executives and shareholders capture all gains while workers and communities bear the costs. Wealth flows upward through stock buybacks, executive compensation, and dividends.
General Electric Walmart Amazon UnitedHealthcare Steel Industry Agriculture
Executive stock options tied to short-term stock price boosts 🎯 Perfect Union Walton family wealth: $380+ billion while workers need food stamps 🎯 Forbes Bezos becomes world's richest person while workers need assistance 🎯 Forbes Top 5 insurers: $371 billion in profits since ACA passed 🔵 Jacobin Executives captured gains through acquisitions and stock manipulation 🎯 Engineering.com Cargill: largest privately-held company in US by revenue 🎯 Cargill
Welch became celebrity CEO while 277,000 US workers became 70,000 (1989-2019) 🎯 RBTUS Employment Store abandonment after extracting wealth: "gargantuan concrete coffins" 🎯 Triple Pundit Stock buybacks and dividends flow to wealthy investors 🎯 SEC Analysis Executive compensation in tens of millions while patients denied care 🎯 Fierce Healthcare 95,000 Bethlehem Steel retirees lost healthcare when company dissolved 🎯 WSWS Retiree Loss Executive compensation in tens of millions while farmers go bankrupt 🎯 Market.us Executive Pay
Company eventually split into 3 pieces after short-term tactics failed 🎯 PerformYard GE Aftermath Shareholders profit while communities pay for infrastructure and subsidies 🎯 Fed Reserve Community Impact Community costs ignored while shareholder value maximized 🔵 WaPo Community Impact Stock buybacks return wealth to shareholders instead of lowering premiums 🎯 Peterson-KFF Economics 2025: US Steel sold to Nippon Steel - final surrender of American industrial capacity 🎯 IMAA Acquisition Analysis Deforestation and environmental destruction for shareholder returns 🎯 Mighty Earth Environmental
The Profit Question: To What Benefit?
"This is how modern business is done." But to whose benefit? We are the frog in the pot and the temperature is slowly rising. The wealth extraction isn't just systematic - it's accelerating while families pay more and get less.
Where Your Money Actually Goes (Per Family Annually)
Healthcare Profits
$1,200-1,800
Of your $6,000-8,000 premium, 20-25% goes to insurance company profits and CEO compensation 🎯 Jacobin Analysis
Retail/Service Subsidies
$900-1,200
Per family annual cost to subsidize low-wage workers at McDonald's, Walmart, Target, Amazon, Dollar stores ($153 billion total) 🎯 UC Berkeley Analysis
Tech Replacement Costs
$1,043
Annual planned obsolescence costs while tech companies post record profits 🏛️ University Study
Agricultural Markups
$800-1,200
Food price inflation while Cargill posts $1+ billion quarterly profits 🎯 Cargill Performance
Appliance Consolidation
$500-800
Higher costs for inferior products as Whirlpool and GE control most of US market, with 14% cost increases passed to consumers while using tariff protection 🎯 Industry Analysis
E-commerce Concentration
40.4% Market Control
Amazon alone controls 40.4% of US e-commerce ($491.65 billion), with Amazon and Walmart together controlling over 50% of all global online sales 🎯 eMarketer Analysis
The Acceleration Pattern
  • Healthcare Profits: Up 400% since 2014 while family premiums rose 52% 🔵 Jacobin
  • Corporate Tax Rates: From 35% to 21% while subsidies increased to $2,795 per worker
  • Executive Compensation: CEO pay up 1,460% since 1978 while worker wages stagnated 🏛️ EPI Analysis
  • Stock Buybacks: $1+ trillion annually returned to shareholders instead of worker wages or lower prices

The Bottom Line: Of your family's $30,000-70,000 annual extraction, $4,000-6,000 goes directly to billionaire profits while you subsidize the rest through taxes. Modern business isn't serving consumers - it's serving wealth concentration.

Methodology: Calculating the True Cost
Understanding the $30,000-70,000 Annual Extraction Range
The total cost calculation represents the annual premium American families pay above efficient service delivery systems. This figure combines corporate subsidies with privatized service markups across multiple sectors simultaneously affecting most families.
Component Breakdown (Annual per Family)
Corporate Subsidies
$2,795 per worker
Walmart alone: $47.56 per worker. Conservative estimate for all corporate welfare
Healthcare Premium
$5,600-7,600
US families: $6,000-8,000 vs European: $200-400 annually
Education Premium
$33,751
US: $35,551/year vs Europe: $1,800/year for higher education
Transportation Premium
$10,982
US: $12,182 vs Europe: $1,200 annually for mobility
Childcare Premium
$12,400 per child
US: $15,600 vs Europe: $3,200 per child annually
Housing Extraction
15-25% of income
Above historical norms due to artificial scarcity and speculation
Important Methodological Notes
  • Family Composition: Not every family faces all costs simultaneously. Range reflects different family structures and geographic locations.
  • Geographic Variation: Costs vary significantly by region, with urban areas typically showing higher extraction premiums.
  • Income Scaling: Higher-income families face larger absolute extraction but lower percentage burden due to progressive nature of some premiums.
  • Temporal Factors: Education costs are concentrated during college years; childcare during early childhood years.
  • Comparison Baseline: European equivalents represent efficient public service delivery, not theoretical minimums.
Comprehensive Analysis
For detailed breakdown of healthcare, education, transportation, and childcare premiums with full international comparisons, see our comprehensive analysis: "The True Tax Burden: Are Semantics Breaking Us?"
Sources & References
Source Classification Legend
🏛️ Government/Institutional - Official government reports, academic institutions, regulatory agencies
🎯 Unbiased/Centrist - Research organizations, industry analyses, factual reporting with minimal bias
🔵 Democratic-Leaning - Progressive publications, Democratic politicians, left-leaning think tanks
🔴 Republican-Leaning - Conservative publications, Republican politicians, right-leaning think tanks
Methodological Transparency
All data sources are provided with clear political classification to enable readers to evaluate potential bias. Claims are cross-referenced across multiple source types where possible. Specific figures and quotes are linked directly to their original sources for verification.