The Current Hostage Crisis

America isn’t being held hostage by drug lords or foreign powers.

It’s being held hostage by insiders. By those who’ve built little castles of power.

“The Executive Branch” is not just the name of the presidential branch of the U.S. government; it’s the name of the newest, most exclusive club in the U.S. — an invite-only private sanctuary in D.C. that costs more than $500,000 to join, whose founders include some of the biggest Trump donors, and even Donald Trump Jr. himself.

Politico reports that “their goal, the people familiar with the plans say, is to create the highest-end private club that Washington has ever had, and cater to the business and tech moguls who are looking to nurture their relationships with the Trump administration.

They’re bragging.

Look, private clubs have been around for centuries: country clubs, Freemasons, even the Illuminati. Private clubs in and of themselves aren’t the problem. But this isn't just another gold-plated toilet seat installation. This is commodification of access to power, packaged as luxury, backed by the president of the U.S. A political pay-to-play, right in the open.

The club's business model is painfully obvious: membership grants you proximity to the decision-maker-in-chief, which reflects the most valuable currency under this new administration — access 

The Executive Branch represents the formalization of an access economy where proximity to power becomes the ultimate luxury good in the form of a privilege cartel. The barrier to entry isn't competence or public service but an absurd membership fee and the right connections.

Due process is fundamentally democratic. The same rules apply whether you're a billionaire or broke. But this access economy we’re experiencing is fundamentally aristocratic. Influence scales with your ability to pay up.

This is a system where the rule of law gets replaced by "who do you know.”

As blatant corruption is increasingly normalized in this “season” of our society, the distance between private interest and public power is collapsing.

But here's what makes this bigger than Trump: The Executive Branch club isn't an anomaly — it's a symptom. The most visible manifestation of a pattern that extends throughout our economy and society.

The same dynamic that enables a $500,000 access club also allows other under-the-radar privilege cartels to thrive, like port unions holding supply chains hostage, medical associations artificially restricting doctor supply, and tech elites shaping policy through private Signal groups.

In these three cases, these small groups create artificial scarcity and/or restrict access to leveraged influence, usually for the benefit of themselves.

Our country is being held hostage by these gatekeepers, these privilege syndicates — each carving out turf, guarding it with bureaucracy, access fees, or vain credentials for the sake of credentials.

Let’s start with the Mob.

#1) The Mob Runs Our Ports

In late 2024, while most of the media wouldn’t call it what it was, we were in a hostage crisis.

The hostage? The U.S. economy.

Our captors were the ILA, or the International Longshoremen's Association — the largest union of maritime workers in North America, representing upwards of 85,000 longshoremen. They may not be the biggest predator in the jungle, but they're among the deadliest to your wallet.

I think most of us forgot that it takes thousands of miles and billions-worth of coordination to stock our shelves and supply our economy, that is — until COVID and then the 2021 Suez Canal obstruction reminded us of this reality.

How could we forget the memes?

But then we forgot again.

Until Harold Daggett, the union leader with alleged ties to the Mob, reminded us by threatening to shut down every major port on the East and Gulf Coasts.

The union’s demands? Higher salaries (despite many already making $250,000+ with overtime for jobs requiring no college education) and a complete ban on port automation.

Our lack of port automation isn't the sole reason behind American ports' terrible global productivity ranking, but it's a huge factor. The U.S.’s ports already suck, ranking embarrassingly low compared to ports around the world.

Ports in China, South Korea, and even Vietnam are fully automating — slashing emissions, increasing throughput, and reducing labor costs.

Meanwhile, a single Chinese port can outmatch almost all American ones combined.

But why?

Because the ILA has become a privilege cartel, not unlike a medieval guild — one that uses the banner of worker solidarity to hold back an entire supply chain.

As Brian Porter wrote, imagine how much poorer the U.S. (and the world) would be if unions had managed to fight off the introduction of the shipping container in the 1960s, which was what the union tried to do!

America is increasingly held hostage by these sort of powerful guild systems masquerading as public servants, or groups that deserve our protection and adoration.

But why? And at what cost?

These groups aren't evil (in all cases), but many leverage their collective power to protect their self-interest at a price that costs us billions.

And in the case of the ILA, they really don’t deserve your sympathy. We're not talking about a benevolent brotherhood looking out for the working man. According to multiple federal investigations, the ILA has a documented history of mob connections. As industry analyst John Martin put it, "The ILA is an infinite grift machine historically run by mobsters, and its participants are just trying to make money."

So when these situations arise, how far will the U.S. go to allow a special interest group to preserve their advantages at the cost of millions of others? This isn't a classic trolley problem; it's a super-minority refusing to grow the pie.

And before you worry about widespread job loss from automation, consider that despite massive automation across industries over decades, America has maintained near record-low unemployment and record-high labor force participation. The economy adapts, creating new and often better jobs than those lost.

I think we can all agree that it’d be a terrible idea for us to go back to the days where 80% of people worked on a farm.

So the problem is not change; it’s when powerful subgroups refuse to let change happen.

Now let's see another privilege cartel — one that might hit closer to home.

#2) The Credential Cartel: Manufacturing Artificial Scarcity

While longshoremen restrict access to ports, another class of gatekeepers restricts access to professions themselves.

Let’s talk about one of the most respectable rackets in the country: the American Medical Association.

Everyone loves doctors. And yet, the AMA has spent decades lobbying to:

• Limit the number of med school slots.

• Restrict foreign-trained doctors from practicing in the U.S., despite evidence showing these doctors don't "crowd out" U.S.-trained physicians.

• Prevent nurse practitioners from working independently, even though studies show no decline in patient safety.

All of this while we suffer from a worsening doctor and nurse shortage. The U.S. has fewer physicians per capita than almost any other developed nation.

Zoom out and you’ll catch the pattern:

“Occupational licensing has grown from 5% of the labor force to almost 25% over the last century. It's spread from healthcare (where it makes the most sense) to the rest of the economy.”

Look at that sucker go.

That includes barbers, florists, and eyebrow threaders. This has nothing to do with safety. It’s about these groups preserving their self-interest by, in this case, manufacturing artificial scarcity.

In your head, you probably think that licensing equals better results and safety, but that's not what happens.

The rise in credentialism (obsession with degrees, certificates, and licenses) largely represents occupations creating unnecessary barriers that don't meaningfully protect customers or improve service quality.

Instead, “the burdens these licenses impose are steep: nearly a year of required education and experience, at least one exam, and $295 in fees, on average. That’s a lot of time and money spent earning a license instead of earning a living, especially for low-income workers. And that doesn’t include hidden costs like tuition for required schooling.”

In fact, if we really wanted to roid up the economy, a powerful first step would be deregulating occupational licensing. 

Credentialism has become a moat, not a ladder. It doesn’t guarantee expertise, just access.

“The point is that expertise and credentials are separate.The credentialists want to claim only credentials can produce expertise. The anti-credentialists should attack credentialism, not expertise itself.”

The problem is NOT expertise.

As Signull writes, “the power structures that governed the last century were all built on scarcity:

• scarcity of access

• scarcity of knowledge

• scarcity of tools

• scarcity of distribution

scarcity creates hierarchy.
hierarchy creates institutions.
institutions create gatekeepers.
gatekeepers tell you who’s allowed to matter.
ai is anti-scarcity.
which makes it anti-institutional.
which makes it deeply threatening to everyone whose value came from hoarding, filtering, & credentialing.
you can feel the tension cracking right now.”

And last but not least, we have a curious gatekeeping group that seems to walk the line.

The Information Aristocracy: Signal Groups and Private Networks

Everyone loves a group chat with the homies.

But a few days ago, the publication Semafor broke a story on the group chats that changed America.

“Their influence flows through X, Substack, and podcasts, and constitutes a kind of dark matter of American politics and media. The group chats aren’t always primarily a political space, but they are the single most important place in which a stunning realignment toward Donald Trump was shaped and negotiated, and an alliance between Silicon Valley and the new right formed.”

If The Executive Branch club is the physical manifestation of the access economy, these Signal groups represent its digital counterpart: spaces where information, connection, and coordination happen outside the judgement of public view, relying upon the same restricted access that defines other privilege cartels.

Remember the huge scandal regarding the Signal group that was used by prominent government figures to coordinate highly-classified military strikes? Tbh, the memes were impeccable.

We're witnessing a massive, weird dichotomy: On one end, AI is blasting open old gatekeeping systems by democratizing access to knowledge and skills. On the other, the access economy is creating increasingly sophisticated private networks where privileged information and opportunity flow through closed channels.

According to economist Mancur Olson’s theory of "the logic of collective action,” this is just how it goes; it’s not very surprising.

Small groups are more effective at organizing and advancing their interests than large, diffuse populations. In Olson's framework, a stable society accumulates these special interest groups over time, eventually leading to economic sclerosis as they extract more and more value from the broader economy.

But huge privileges shouldn't be granted based on access alone, whether that's via private clubs, unions, fancy medical associations, or Signal group chats.

Remember my last post on "Mom and Pop Menaces"? Whether it's small-scale NIMBYs blocking housing development or massive port unions holding supply chains hostage, the underlying pattern is the same: small groups with concentrated interests extracting and/or hoarding value from the broader population.

I’m not saying all unions are evil, all credentials are useless, or group chats should be banned.

This isn't a left vs. right issue. It's an insider vs. outsider issue. A closed system vs. open access issue.

It’s time to tear down the drawbridges of these gatekeepers.

If you’re keen to see more, refer one friend and get access to a list of other privilege cartels that you’ve never heard of 👀

Thanks for taking the Pack,

Zach

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_{The vibe-killer disclaimer: The opinions in this post and all other posts only represent myself and do not represent the opinions of my employer or any groups I am a member of.
This is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.}

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.