Who Really Owns America (It's Not Who You Think)

Have you ever wondered who really owns and controls America? Could it be the group that met in secret on Jekyll Island and built our central banks that now control trillions of dollars? And who actually owns the majority of the stock market? Some people have said it's actually the holy trinity of asset managers. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, which together control 23 trillion in proxy votes across 90% of the entire stock market. And who does the U.S. owe all of this money to? And who are the mysterious landowners that control 1.3 billion acres, from mega-landlords like the Emersons to John Malone all the way to Bill Gates? Or maybe it's the tech overlords that harvest 175 zettabytes of data that track everything we do online. This is an incredibly deep rabbit hole, and over the course of this video, I'm going to help explain the different forms of control and how they've evolved throughout history. From land, money, to corporations, to debt, and so much more. And by the end of this video, you'll know exactly who controls the country. And stick around because I'll show you what I think the real answer is and what I think is also the solution. So with that said, let's get into it. Hi, my name is Andre Jek. Hope you're doing well. Comfort the Finance and stay for the Illuminati. Now, in the 19th century, owning land was one of the ultimate ways to control and own the country. Under something called the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, Congress actually gave 174 million acres of public land to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, which were sections of land that stretched for miles. And then something really interesting happened. Union Pacific insiders set up something called the Credit Mobilier Construction Company, and they quietly gave out discounted or even free shares of this company to key congressmen and people in power to make sure that in return, they would get friendly legislation and funding. And when all of this broke out in 1872, it exposed how land grants could actually influence politics and give total corporate control of new territories. Now, fast forward to today, and a small group of mega landlords still control disproportionate amounts of power over local economies and politics. Private owners, for example, control 1.3 billion acres, or about 60% of US land. Now, some of those families are maybe names you've never heard of, like the Emerson family, which control over 2.4 million acres, or John Malone at over 2.2 million acres. Even tech CEOs like Bill Gates have bought up over 200,000 acres of farmland across 18 states. In Nebraska alone, for example, his Mount Edna Farms LLC now controls over 20,000 acres. And people are starting to get worried because if any of it went tax exempt and became a nonprofit, then that would mean all the counties that are around it could see their property tax revenues destroyed, and that could negatively affect schools and services and everything else. So whoever owns land still holds a huge amount of power. They can control who gets tax money, voting districts, and which resources go where. So that's the first aspect of who owns and controls America. Those who control a lot of land. Now, if land was the original source of power, then credit was the evolution of it. And it still hugely owns not just the U.S., but the entire world. And the origin story of how credit came to be is going to sound like a total conspiracy, but it's not. In November 1910, a secret group of U.S. bankers led by J.P. Morgan, National City, the First National Bank of New York, and a few other big banks under Senator Aldrich's sponsorship, they all met here, a place called Jekyll Island. Their goal was to create the Federal Reserve Act to control the supply of America's money. Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws. Now, that was a very famous quote that is oftentimes attributed to Mayor Amschel Rothschild. Now, the Rothschild family built the blueprint of central banking in the 1800s. But when it came to America's actual money printer, the family, despite all the endless conspiracy theories, supposedly never held direct ownership over the Fed. Instead, the Fed is owned by the smaller commercial U.S. banks. And when Congress passed the act in December 1913, it created the 12 regional reserve banks. And all of them were given the superpower to do what's called fractional reserve banking. And that allows the banks to reserve only a fraction of your deposit and lend the rest of it to someone else. Now, this is going to blow your mind, but here is how it used to work up until very recently. Let's say you deposit $100 with your bank. Now, that bank can loan up to $90 of your money to someone else. The other $10 is reserved for you in case you need it. That's called vault cash. Now, your bank account will still show you having $100. But on the bank side, though, that $100 deposit just created another $90 for the bank to lend out. Now, let's say someone borrows that $90 of technically your money, and then they pay someone for something that they bought. Then that person goes to deposit their $90 with their bank, and that bank also gets to do the exact same thing and lend out 90% of it. And this process can repeat until there's up to $1,000 of bank credit, all backed by only $100 of vault cash. Now, believe it or not, that's how it used to work. But as of March 2020, that system changed. And now the Fed has lowered the reserve requirement to 0%, meaning there's no reserve requirement for banks. They can lend out the maximum amount of everything you deposit. Of course, under the Fed's guidance. Now, today, our central bank, the Federal Reserve, has over $6 trillion on their balance sheet. And they also get to control things like the mortgage rates, which is based on the 10-year treasury bond, corporate credit, and the purchasing power of our paychecks. And to this day, the president does not have control or authority over the Fed, and he cannot fire the person in charge of it. And that's why some people say that if a handful of banks get to decide who creates dollars and how many of them, then that's one way to own a country. Now, if banks control the money, then who controls and owns the U.S. stock market? There's a lot of interesting theories out there, but probably the most popular one is the Holy Trinity. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. BlackRock is the subject of a lot of speculation online. There is a robot that controls more wealth than any country on Earth. Really, the commander-in-chief is Larry Fink. They have stock in 95% of Fortune 500 companies, and they've been hired by governments across the world to help manage financial crises and even just conduct normal operations. Imagine if you had control of 88% of CEOs of S&P 500 companies. What kind of influence do you have? Now, you've probably heard the claims that BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, or the Big Three, own the stock market. And the truth is that this is so wrong and so right at the same time. It's wrong because, yes, they do manage trillions of dollars, but most of that money belongs to everyday investors like you and me. So technically, they're just managing our money, not owning the world outright. But it's true that they do have a huge amount of power and control, so much so that Charlie Munger once famously said, I think the world of Fink, but I'm not sure I want him to be my emperor. So let me break down why their power is very real and how it actually works. Now, the central bank is not the only thing that can create money into existence. The stock market can also make its own special form of money. You see, public companies can create new shares of their company. For example, a company called MicroStrategy does this all the time. They do that so they could buy more Bitcoin. And by creating new stocks and new money, they can double down and buy more Bitcoin to hopefully make their stock worth even more. But the question is, who gets to decide which companies get to do that? Well, it turns out it's the company itself, the company's own board of directors. And if the dilution is big enough, technically the shareholders as well. But here's where BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street come in to sort of run the show. They can't call up the CEO of Strategy and be like, hey, Michael, you're fired. But they do vote on who becomes members of the board of a company, and those people can make those decisions. They can vote on director elections, and those people can influence company policy. But they also have another superpower. The big three have a vested interest in almost every company in the S&P 500, with roughly $23 trillion under management and proxy votes on about 90% of U.S. stocks. The three of them combined are the major stockholders of 95% of American corporations. How's that? That's not good. That's power. And what that means is when your average mutual fund or ETF like VTSAX from Vanguard needs to vote on something, it turns to one of those three giants to cast your proxy. Now, what's a proxy? A proxy is just the legal permission given to them by you to vote your shares at a company meeting when you can't be there yourself, which is the case for most working people with a job. Now, personally, I don't ever vote on anything. I have the right to, and I get all the letters in the mail. I just don't have the time or interest to. You're probably in the same boat. So instead, Vanguard's stewardship team analyzes those proposals against their policy and gets to vote on your behalf. So even though the big three don't technically own the stock market, their voting power does have a lot of weight and by extension, a lot of power. And that's why some people say, well, if just three asset managers hold the biggest voting blocks in almost every major company in existence, then who really owns corporate America? Now, if banks and corporations can borrow infinite amounts of money, and if the country can do the same by selling its treasury bonds, then who does the U.S. owe its money to? Well, here's our debt so far. That's a lot of money. And who is it owed to? And before we get into that, though, I want to quickly mention taking back control of your own economic energy. That's why this video is brought to you by Kraken. Kraken is a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011 and is the official crypto exchange and partner of Williams F1 and Tottenham Hotspur. Now, since 2011, Kraken has built a reputation on rock-solid security so you know your assets are protected at every layer. Kraken's interface is designed to be easy for both beginners and advanced traders. They offer one of the biggest selections of cryptocurrencies, everything from Bitcoin and Ethereum to emerging altcoins. And if you want to step up your game, Kraken's advanced tools make charting, limit orders, and portfolio management super easy. If you're ready to explore crypto on a platform that puts security and simplicity first, sign up with Kraken today using the link in the description below. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps keep the channel running. And remember, the information provided in this video is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Thanks to Kraken for sponsoring this segment of the video. And now let's get back to it. So here's the breakdown. At the end of last year, in 2024, the United States had over $36 trillion in gross federal debt, which is roughly 120% of something called the GDP, which means more than a full year's worth of all goods and services the U.S. makes, we are now in debt. Now out of that $36 trillion though, about 80% of the debt was held by public investors, with the rest of the 20% recorded as intergovernmental debt. Of the $29 trillion held by the public, foreign investors in other countries owned about $8.5 trillion or 30%, including $1.8 trillion split between Japan and China. That's why you've probably heard the rumor that China and Japan own the U.S. They could collapse the U.S. by selling all of their treasury bonds and just dump them all in the market. But that would probably never happen because here's the catch. Selling that many treasury bonds would collapse bond prices, which would increase interest rates through the roof, and it would destroy the value of their holdings too. In other words, the biggest foreign owners of U.S. debt have just as much of a reason to keep our borrowing costs as low as we do. The more U.S. treasuries a country owns, the more their economy is tied to the fate of the U.S. economy. So it's kind of ironic and counterintuitive, and no foreign countries don't actually control the U.S. In reality, the single biggest holder of public debt is the Federal Reserve, with over $6 trillion on its balance sheet. Now that debt is owned by investors like state and local pension funds, banks, insurance companies. If you own treasuries or bonds, as people call them, you are part of that. And you own a part of America's future tax revenue, and you make money when the government pays interest. So if you're a bondholder, you partially own America. The problem is, at a certain point, investors don't want to lend money to the U.S. because our debt is considered risky. Can the U.S. sustain itself on this path forever? Most economists say no. The U.S. federal debt is on an unsustainable path. It's not at an unsustainable level. And no one really knows how much further we can go. You know, we're running very large deficits at full employment. And this is a situation that we very much need to address. Sooner or later, we'll have to. And sooner is better than later. And if you're going to lend your money to someone that is considered very risky, that's on an unsustainable path, you would want a higher interest rate for giving them your money. That means the more money we print and the more treasury bonds we create, the U.S. has to incentivize investors with higher and higher rates. And that will cost the country more and more in interest. It's the infinite feedback loop. That's one of the reasons why President Trump wants to lower interest rates so the U.S. could refinance at a more reasonable level. Now, if companies and banks can print unlimited amounts of money and the U.S. has so much debt, then couldn't we just change the system and vote the right people into power and just make it all better? Turns out that's really hard to do. And nowhere is that becoming more clear than politics. In 2024, for example, 100 billionaire families spent a record $2.6 billion in federal raises, about one sixth of total spending. The top 50 individual donors gave out $2.5 billion with Republican-leaning contributions, outpacing Democrats about two to one. If you remember, Elon Musk was actually a big part of that, and he donated hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly to President Trump's causes. But there's also Miriam Adelson, who gave out over $100 million in 2024, and she's one of the GOP's biggest donors. There's also Timothy Mellon, who gave out $197 million to elections, almost all to Republican-led super PACs. Add $1.9 billion in estimated dark money spending by nonprofits and shell groups that conceal their donors, and you get the idea. But it's also the same story on the Democrat side. George Soros' super PACs spent a ton of money. His Open Society Foundations spent at least $140 million into organizations in 2021, on top of more than $170 million he contributed personally during the 2022 midterms. And in the 2024 cycle, the Soros family-funded groups like the Texas Organizing Project got 600 grand, and state Democratic parties in Wisconsin and Ohio got 250,000 each from Soros-affiliated entities. Now this rabbit hole goes so deep, but for the purpose of this video, the point here is that the system spends a huge amount of money to influence who runs for politics, how things are the way they are, and who the winners and losers ultimately get to be. But all this sort of brings me back to the original question of who controls and owns the country. And I think the answer is it depends on what you value. Some people, for example, don't value money. They value political control. Some people value social control and the ability to say things that they want without a consequence. There's a lot of levels to this. There's no one entity that controls all of it. So what do you value? For me, the thing I value most is my economic energy. Like this bill right here, it represents a small part of my energy. I converted my time into skills and my time and skills into this, right? It's another form of energy. And I can also convert it into something else like food or shelter. But unfortunately, someone controls this form of energy already because they have a magic button that they can just press, which zaps this energy away from me. Now, I can't actually see it vanishing, but I feel it when I go shopping. And I realized that the time I spent to get this buys me less of the things I want. And that's what rich people kind of figured out the solution to that problem. And it's called a store of value. They figured out that if they can convert that form of energy into something else like stocks, real estate, or art, they can keep more of their economic energy for themselves for longer. Now, some of the most efficient forms of energy they found are things like stocks, beachfront property, gold, and art. And that's why those assets have what's called a premium. A premium is to pay more than what something might be worth. But think about it. Why is there a premium? At the end of the day, a house is a house. A car is a car. A thing is a thing. There's no real reason from a utility perspective why one house should be worth the average and another worth millions and millions, except for its ability to hold and store value. That's the primary reason there's a premium. Rich people are happy to pay more for those things than they are intrinsically worth because those things store their economic energy more efficiently. How special is that thing beyond its utility? And how desirable will it be to others in the future? That desirability is tied through the lens of economic energy. And that's the quadrillion dollar question. Which one of them is the best for that? I promise you, I don't want this to be a Bitcoin pitch video, but I'm gonna leave you with this. It's a tweet I saw from Tad Smith, and it might open up your mind to an idea. In 2017, a famous Basquiat painting sold for 110 and a half million dollars. It was the most expensive Basquiat painting sold at the time. Bitcoin was worth about $2,000 a coin, which meant the buyer could have spent 55,000 Bitcoins to buy this painting. But fast forward to July, 2025, and Bitcoin is now $117,000. That same $110 million painting would only need 941 Bitcoins. Now in dollar terms, that painting went up in value. It preserved its economic energy. Awesome. But if you measured it against a different economic energy, Bitcoin, then you'd actually realize the painting lost 98% of its value. Now the same is true of real estate. What was the average cost of a house a couple of years ago? How many Bitcoins did it take to buy one? From 2016 to 2024, the average house went up over 50% relative to dollars. That's insane. It preserved economic energy. Awesome. But relative to Bitcoin, it lost 99%. In fact, from 2020 to 2025, the average house again lost over 80% of its value. Bitcoin is draining all of the premium out of those assets, and it is sucking it up as more and more money realizes that this specific form of energy is superior for the purpose of protecting economic energy. And that's why every asset class will continue to depreciate when measured against it. And as more and more money understands those benefits, it will continue to tell that same story. What those benefits are though, I'm going to leave it up to you to study. Bitcoin is not for everyone, and I get that. But if you value preserving the value of your time, then you might want to read into it. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Smash the like button. Subscribe if you haven't already. I'd love to see you back here next week, and I'd love to get your thoughts. I'll see you soon. Bye-bye.