Outside of the tourist traps and corporate bubbles, one will see a different America – one that was affected by its own corporate greed, writes Tuan Muda. – Unsplash pic, April 29, 2025
Americans: the first victims of US corporate greed – Tuan Muda
The United States' greatest threat wasn’t across the ocean. It was sitting in the boardrooms of Manhattan and Silicon Valley
Updated 4 hours ago
29 April, 2025
1:37 PM MYT
Americans: the first victims of US corporate greed – Tuan Muda
The United States' greatest threat wasn’t across the ocean. It was sitting in the boardrooms of Manhattan and Silicon Valley
Updated 4 hours ago
29 April, 2025
1:37 PM MYT
EVERY time you step outside the polished tourist traps or the manicured corporate bubbles of America, a different country appears.
A bleaker one. The education levels plummet. The health of the population craters. The upkeep of homes, streets, and basic infrastructure collapses. The “American Dream” sold to the world – clean, safe suburbs, endless opportunity – is nowhere in sight.
Instead, you find rusted-out towns, homeless encampments sprawled across sidewalks, bars welded onto windows – not to keep wealth out, but to hold desperation at bay.
And a sea of obesity, driven not by excess, but by poverty and processed survival rations masquerading as food. It’s a gut punch every time.
And it exposes a brutal truth most elites will never say out loud: Americans were the first victims of US corporate greed.
For decades, American corporations were allowed – and even encouraged – to abandon their own people. They offshored factories, they strip-mined communities for labour, then left them for dead.
They traded real jobs for quarterly stock gains, swapping middle-class security for overseas profits.
Meanwhile, the politicians – Democrats and Republicans alike – greased the rails.
They sold “free trade” as liberation, “efficiency” as progress.
What they delivered was a hollowed-out economy where working Americans became disposable. In the 1960s, a high school diploma could land you a stable manufacturing job, a house, and a pension.
Today, even a college degree barely guarantees you shelter – let alone a future.
The American worker didn’t lose to globalisation, they were sold out to it. By their own corporations. By their own political class.
And here’s the final insult:
Even after gutting the middle class, even after shipping jobs and profits offshore, the US still refuses to provide basic universal safety net such as healthcare.
This isn’t because America is “too poor.” It’s not because it’s “too complicated.” It’s because the healthcare system itself is a trillion-dollar cartel.
Insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, hospital chains – all feeding off a broken model that monetises suffering.
Even China, for all its flaws, guarantees basic healthcare.
In America, it’s treated like a radical pipe dream.
Why? Because the corporate lobbies made sure it stayed that way. They bought Congress wholesale. They turned healthcare into a commodity, where survival depends on your insurance card – and your ability to pay.
The richest country in the world by GDP is also one where a single accident or illness can bankrupt you. Where insulin costs US$300 a vial when it should cost US$5.
It’s not a failure of resources, it’s a triumph of greed.
The physical decay – the crumbling bridges, the abandoned neighbourhoods, the bars on windows – that’s just the surface.
Beneath it lies the social decay: trust destroyed, civic pride extinguished – a society too atomised, too exhausted, and too broke to rebuild itself.
The American worker has been squeezed dry – first by offshoring, then by wage suppression, then by asset inflation they can no longer afford to keep up with.
Owning a home, raising a family, getting medical care—all of it is harder now than it was two generations ago.
This isn’t the natural evolution of an advanced economy. It’s the planned obsolescence of an entire class of people – the people who built America’s industrial might.
And it’s the reason why the “wealthiest” country on earth can’t even provide basics to its own citizens without a fight.
Trump didn’t create this crisis. He capitalised on it.
When he spoke of “America First,” it wasn’t a call for conquest or isolation. It was a simple recognition: America’s greatest threat wasn’t across the ocean. It was sitting in the boardrooms of Manhattan and Silicon Valley.
It wasn’t foreign competition that hollowed out America. It was domestic betrayal. And Trump – whether you loved him or hated him – was the first political figure in decades to say it out loud.
He pointed a finger not at the foreigner, but at the American CEO who abandoned Detroit. At the politician who sold steelworkers for stock options. At the corporation that built fortunes while Main Street collapsed.
And the system – the real system – responded with fury.
The media. Owned by the same corporations that profited from globalisation, went to war against him.
Every late-night show. Every cable news channel. Every newspaper editorial board.
They didn’t oppose Trump because he was crude or chaotic. They opposed him because he threatened to expose the great unspoken truth: that America’s decline was engineered. And it was engineered from the inside.
They could tolerate populism – until it threatened their profits. Then the gloves came off.
And for the first time in living memory, the American corporate empire turned its weapons inward – against its own people, against its own voters.
The true enemy wasn’t China. They were just the enablers. It was the American corporation weaponising the American government against the American people.
You’re seeing the victory of a system that chose stock prices over human lives.
Until Americans break that machine – until they bring their corporations home, reclaim their economy, and rebuild their society – the American Dream will remain boarded up, fading further with every passing year.
Americans were the first victims. And unless they fight back, they won’t be the last.
Author’s Note: I say this not as an outsider looking in, but as someone who grew up between two worlds – raised in the American system, witnessing both its promise and its decay firsthand. This isn’t criticism from a distance. It’s the painful truth from someone who once believed in the dream, too. – April 29, 2025
Mudasir Khan works in the logistics industry and shuttles between the US and Penang where he was born
A bleaker one. The education levels plummet. The health of the population craters. The upkeep of homes, streets, and basic infrastructure collapses. The “American Dream” sold to the world – clean, safe suburbs, endless opportunity – is nowhere in sight.
Instead, you find rusted-out towns, homeless encampments sprawled across sidewalks, bars welded onto windows – not to keep wealth out, but to hold desperation at bay.
And a sea of obesity, driven not by excess, but by poverty and processed survival rations masquerading as food. It’s a gut punch every time.
And it exposes a brutal truth most elites will never say out loud: Americans were the first victims of US corporate greed.
For decades, American corporations were allowed – and even encouraged – to abandon their own people. They offshored factories, they strip-mined communities for labour, then left them for dead.
They traded real jobs for quarterly stock gains, swapping middle-class security for overseas profits.
Meanwhile, the politicians – Democrats and Republicans alike – greased the rails.
They sold “free trade” as liberation, “efficiency” as progress.
What they delivered was a hollowed-out economy where working Americans became disposable. In the 1960s, a high school diploma could land you a stable manufacturing job, a house, and a pension.
Today, even a college degree barely guarantees you shelter – let alone a future.
The American worker didn’t lose to globalisation, they were sold out to it. By their own corporations. By their own political class.
And here’s the final insult:
Even after gutting the middle class, even after shipping jobs and profits offshore, the US still refuses to provide basic universal safety net such as healthcare.
This isn’t because America is “too poor.” It’s not because it’s “too complicated.” It’s because the healthcare system itself is a trillion-dollar cartel.
Insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, hospital chains – all feeding off a broken model that monetises suffering.
Even China, for all its flaws, guarantees basic healthcare.
In America, it’s treated like a radical pipe dream.
Why? Because the corporate lobbies made sure it stayed that way. They bought Congress wholesale. They turned healthcare into a commodity, where survival depends on your insurance card – and your ability to pay.
The richest country in the world by GDP is also one where a single accident or illness can bankrupt you. Where insulin costs US$300 a vial when it should cost US$5.
It’s not a failure of resources, it’s a triumph of greed.
The physical decay – the crumbling bridges, the abandoned neighbourhoods, the bars on windows – that’s just the surface.
Beneath it lies the social decay: trust destroyed, civic pride extinguished – a society too atomised, too exhausted, and too broke to rebuild itself.
The American worker has been squeezed dry – first by offshoring, then by wage suppression, then by asset inflation they can no longer afford to keep up with.
Owning a home, raising a family, getting medical care—all of it is harder now than it was two generations ago.
This isn’t the natural evolution of an advanced economy. It’s the planned obsolescence of an entire class of people – the people who built America’s industrial might.
And it’s the reason why the “wealthiest” country on earth can’t even provide basics to its own citizens without a fight.
Trump didn’t create this crisis. He capitalised on it.
When he spoke of “America First,” it wasn’t a call for conquest or isolation. It was a simple recognition: America’s greatest threat wasn’t across the ocean. It was sitting in the boardrooms of Manhattan and Silicon Valley.
It wasn’t foreign competition that hollowed out America. It was domestic betrayal. And Trump – whether you loved him or hated him – was the first political figure in decades to say it out loud.
He pointed a finger not at the foreigner, but at the American CEO who abandoned Detroit. At the politician who sold steelworkers for stock options. At the corporation that built fortunes while Main Street collapsed.
And the system – the real system – responded with fury.
The media. Owned by the same corporations that profited from globalisation, went to war against him.
Every late-night show. Every cable news channel. Every newspaper editorial board.
They didn’t oppose Trump because he was crude or chaotic. They opposed him because he threatened to expose the great unspoken truth: that America’s decline was engineered. And it was engineered from the inside.
They could tolerate populism – until it threatened their profits. Then the gloves came off.
And for the first time in living memory, the American corporate empire turned its weapons inward – against its own people, against its own voters.
The true enemy wasn’t China. They were just the enablers. It was the American corporation weaponising the American government against the American people.
You’re seeing the victory of a system that chose stock prices over human lives.
Until Americans break that machine – until they bring their corporations home, reclaim their economy, and rebuild their society – the American Dream will remain boarded up, fading further with every passing year.
Americans were the first victims. And unless they fight back, they won’t be the last.
Author’s Note: I say this not as an outsider looking in, but as someone who grew up between two worlds – raised in the American system, witnessing both its promise and its decay firsthand. This isn’t criticism from a distance. It’s the painful truth from someone who once believed in the dream, too. – April 29, 2025
Mudasir Khan works in the logistics industry and shuttles between the US and Penang where he was born
Really enjoyed this post on HeroLuigi — the insights are both practical and inspiring! I especially liked how you highlighted the importance of staying consistent with content creation. I'm working on similar topics and strategies over at my own website, Hero Luigi, where I share tips and experiences around digital growth and creative strategies. Keep up the awesome work — looking forward to more helpful content here!
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