by the El Reportero staff
With reports by Catherine Austin Fitts
In a time of rising rent, shrinking wages, and increasing digital control, Latino communities across the United States are facing a subtle but coordinated squeeze. From economic marginalization to invasive surveillance, the forces shaping our lives are often hidden in budgets we don’t vote on and technologies we didn’t ask for. To understand what’s happening to our neighborhoods, our freedoms, and our futures, we must pull back the curtain on five converging trends—and follow the money.
Economic Pressure: A System Not Designed for Us
Despite being one of the most economically active demographics in the U.S., Latinos remain vulnerable to inflation, job insecurity, and debt traps. While headlines boast about stock market gains and economic growth, the lived experience in many working-class barrios tells another story. Wages haven’t kept up with inflation. Food and utility costs soar. And most of the financial “booms” of the last decade—tech stocks, crypto, and AI startups—have benefited elites, not everyday laborers.
According to Catherine Austin Fitts, this disparity is no accident. It reflects a system increasingly structured to siphon value from the bottom and consolidate it at the top. From Wall Street to Washington, financial mechanisms are being used not to empower local economies but to extract from them. And communities of color, often left out of decision-making rooms, bear the brunt.
Surveillance and Digital Control: The New Chains
Technology was supposed to liberate us. Instead, it’s being weaponized to monitor and control. From street cameras in urban areas to AI-driven “predictive policing,” Latino communities are subject to disproportionate surveillance. Even financial behavior is now tracked, as cashless payment systems and digital ID initiatives gain momentum.
Austin Fitts warns that the future of finance is not just about convenience but control. With central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on the horizon, governments could gain the power to restrict how and where people spend money. If your spending habits don’t align with official narratives, your digital wallet could be disabled or limited. Such tools, she argues, will not be applied evenly—they will target the politically powerless first.
This raises urgent questions about liberty. What happens when the very tools we use to participate in the economy are turned into levers of compliance?
Public Finance Corruption: Budgets We Never See
Trillions of dollars move through government budgets each year—but how much do we really know about where they go? In her research, Fitts has documented massive discrepancies in Pentagon accounting and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) expenditures. The money, she says, often disappears into “black budgets” with little oversight.
For Latino communities—many of which rely on public services for housing, healthcare, and education—this kind of financial opacity is more than a policy issue. It’s a betrayal. We are told there isn’t enough money for teachers, clinics, or clean water, even as billions are funneled to defense contractors, data surveillance firms, and speculative real estate ventures.
If these funds were instead invested in local infrastructure and empowerment, the results could be transformative. But without accountability, the flow of public dollars continues to favor the few over the many.
Housing: The American Dream, For Sale to the Highest Bidder
Perhaps nowhere is the impact of financial centralization more visible than in housing. Real estate is no longer just a place to live—it’s an asset class for hedge funds, pension funds, and multinational investors.
In major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami—home to large Latino populations—entire neighborhoods are being bought up, renovated, and re-rented at rates working families can’t afford. Evictions and displacement follow.
Austin Fitts connects this to the broader “financialization” of life: assets once rooted in community, like homes and land, are now turned into speculative instruments. The result is not just higher prices but the erosion of cultural fabric and communal stability. We are witnessing the quiet dissolution of Latino enclaves, replaced not by revitalization, but by profit extraction.
Government Overreach: The Loss of Local Power
Underlying all these trends is a dangerous consolidation of authority. Local governance is increasingly sidelined by federal mandates, international banking interests, and unaccountable technocratic agencies. From education policies to energy regulations, decisions are being made without input from the communities they affect most.
This top-down approach undermines the principle of subsidiarity—that decisions should be made as close as possible to the people. It also facilitates manipulation. As Austin Fitts has pointed out, the centralization of financial systems, surveillance tools, and political authority sets the stage for systemic abuse.
Whether through economic coercion or digital tracking, control is shifting from families and neighborhoods to opaque institutions with little regard for cultural diversity or human dignity.
What Can Be Done?
Awareness is the first step. We must insist on transparency—in public spending, digital infrastructure, and housing development. We must support local economies, credit unions, and food systems that prioritize resilience over speculation.
And above all, we must recognize that our communities are not just economic units but sacred networks of trust, memory, and cooperation. Preserving them requires vigilance, courage, and the willingness to question narratives handed down from above.
The future is being built now. If we don’t claim it, someone else will—on our backs.
With reports by Catherine Austin Fitts
