https://talkbusiness.net/2025/08/acretrader-acquired-by-proterra-investment-partners/
Now, I’ve often observed that if you want to see a man’s true religion, don’t look at the leather-bound book he thumps on Sundays; look at his ledger on Monday morning. It seems our modern Patriot Leaders have found a way to serve both God and Mammon, though I suspect Mammon is getting the better end of the deal and God is being kept in the waiting room with a stale magazine.
I’ve been reading about this AcreTrader business, a fine name that suggests a sturdy fellow in overalls trading a few acres over a fence. It turns out it was swallowed whole by something called “Proterra Investment Partners.” Now, in the old days, a farm was a place where a family raised corn and children; today, it’s an “asset class” with “negative correlation to financial assets.” That’s a fancy way of saying that while the world goes to hell in a handbasket, the folks in the tall buildings can still make a nickel off the dirt under a laborer’s fingernails.
The good folks of the GOP shout from the rooftops about “traditional values” and “Christian foundations.” They wrap themselves in the flag so tight you’d think they were afraid of catching a draft of common sense. They point to the Bible as their guidebook, yet their policies look more like they were written by the money-changers Jesus once introduced to the business end of a whip.
You see, the Man from Galilee had some rather specific notions about wealth. He spoke of camels passing through needles and warned that you can’t serve two masters. But the modern conservative movement has built a cathedral to Self-Interest and called it “Liberty.” They preach a Gospel of Greed where the “least of these” aren’t the poor or the immigrant, but the poor, misunderstood corporation looking for a tax break.
Take this farmland consolidation. It’s the direct result of a philosophy that prizes the “free market” above the free man. They use Christianity as a cultural badge, a way to tell who’s in the tribe, while enacting laws that ensure the earth is inherited not by the meek, but by the private equity firms. They talk of “stewardship” in church, then vote for a Farm Bill that treats the land like an orange to be squeezed dry for shareholders in Chicago or New York.
It’s a peculiar kind of piety that finds “hatred” to be a spiritual gift. They’ve traded the Sermon on the Mount for the Screed on the Mount, where the beatitudes are replaced with grievances.
Blessed are the arrogant, for they shall own the media cycle.
Blessed are the merciless, for they shall win the primary.
Whether you’re a union man in a hard hat or a fellow staring at a spreadsheet in a cubicle, the joke is on us. They use the mythology of faith or the culture wars to keep us divided, while they quiet-walk the resources of the nation into fewer and fewer hands. It’s a grand performance, really. If Mark Twain were here, he’d say the only difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that the politician uses a Bible to distract you while he reaches for your wallet.