What Percentage of Our Economy Is Fake?

[Timber Rattler]

Answer...about half of it---most decrepit strip mall small businesses are money laundering operations.

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/02/06/what-percentage-of-our-economy-is-fake-n3811322

It's a question that I had not put too much thought into until recently, but in light of the revelations over the past year from DOGE, the current fraud investigations in Minnesota, Oregon, Maine, and California (and I hope that will soon expand to all 50 states), it really has struck me that a huge proportion of our economy is probably just money laudering.

Of course, we all understood at some vague level that there had to be a large amount of money laundering going on. The illegal drug trade alone is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and that is just one portion of a large black market.

Most of that money has to be washed somehow, so it stood to reason that a lot of cash businesses were used to wash it.

But now that we are learning that hundreds of billions—at least—of government expenditures go to fake nonprofits and businesses, and that likely a similar amount is sent out in inflated costs attached to legitimate government contracts, it has been dawning on me and others that some significant fraction of our apparent economy amounts to storefronts that provide little to no actual goods and services.

https://twitter.com/RamboVanHalen/status/2016583084913950759

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Answer...about half of it---most decrepit strip mall small businesses are money laundering operations.

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/02/06/what-percentage-of-our-economy-is-fake-n3811322

According to some guy on Twitter.

[Timber Rattler]

According to some guy on Twitter.

Just like that Nick Shirley guy up in Minneapolis?

[Free Vulcan]

I'd say a quarter to a third, but don't think half is out of the realm of possibility.