Disaster is Big Business for Commercial Franchises

One need look no further than Donald Trump's announcement that the destruction of Gaza, at the cost of Palestinian life, has cleared the way for a big, beautiful Trump establishment, as envisioned years earlier by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to see how war and destruction can be incorporated into a business strategy to amass wealth for the politically-connected.

The largest fire in California history has cleared the way for BlackRock, among others, to invest in real estate among the ashes with a view to tapping into the multi-trillion dollar AI-Smart City market.

Natural and man-made disasters have given rise to fundraising efforts in Haiti and elsewhere, paving the way for the political classes and government franchises to cash in. The misallocation of America's wealth around the world to subsidize and recover from wars and disasters was reaffirmed in the USAID report released by Elon Musk's DOGE task-force.

War was always a racket, as Gen. Smedley Butler observed. Government contractors made a killing before, during, and after wars by way of government contracting. Ensuing opportunities abounded to reorganize governments and institutions under private control while tapping the natural resources and wealth of others and establishing government-defended and subsidized monopolies.

The predatory pattern of exploiting human suffering, war, and natural disasters for private gain is so patently observable and profitable that Barron's is now recommending it as a business strategy.