This week, America turns 250.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, thirteen colonies with about 2.5 million people declared independence from the most powerful empire on Earth. It was, by any rational measure, a terrible bet. The colonists had no navy, no standing army, no currency worth the paper it was printed on, no allies, and no guarantee they would survive the winter, let alone the war.
They took the bet anyway.
Today, the descendants of that bet make up 4% of the world’s population and produce roughly a quarter of everything the world makes. That is not luck. That is not an accident. That is what happens when you build a nation on freedom, ownership, and the radical idea that ordinary people, left free to work and dream and build, will do extraordinary things.
Warren Buffett put it in four words: “Never bet against America.” He wrote that after living through a depression, a world war, and a dozen recessions, and after watching every one of them make the country stronger. In his view, wagering against the United States has been a losing trade for two and a half centuries, and there is no reason to believe that changes now. We agree.
At Gatewood, we talk a lot about the danger of pessimism. We recently wrote an entire piece about it: The Panicans Are Always Wrong. The doubters and the doomsayers have been calling for America’s decline since before the ink dried on the Declaration. They were wrong in 1776. They were wrong in 1861, in 1929, in 1941, in 1979, in 2008, and in 2020. And we believe they are wrong today.
So this Independence Day, in honor of the semiquincentennial, here are ten facts that make the rational case for optimism. Not blind patriotism. Not wishful thinking. Facts.
1. America runs the greatest compounding machine in human history
The United States Constitution is the oldest written national constitution still in operation anywhere in the world. Think about what that means. While empires rose and fell, while other nations tore up their founding documents and started over, America kept compounding. Same rules. Same rights. Same safeguards for property, contracts, and free enterprise, for 250 years straight.
Investors know the magic ingredient in compounding is not the rate of return. It is time. Uninterrupted time. America has given free people and free markets more uninterrupted time to compound than any nation in modern history. The results speak for themselves.
2. Four percent of the people. Twenty-six percent of the output.
The United States holds about 4% of the world’s population yet generates roughly 26% of global GDP. The American economy is larger than the next largest economy by more than $11 trillion. One country. Four percent of humanity. More than a quarter of the world’s economic output.
No nation in history has ever punched that far above its weight for that long. And the gap between American output and the rest of the developed world has been widening, not narrowing, over the past two decades.
3. The world’s most valuable companies are overwhelmingly American
Of the 100 most valuable companies on Earth, roughly 59 are American. Not 10. Not 20. Nearly 60.
The companies reshaping the global economy in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, cloud computing, biotechnology, and aerospace are disproportionately headquartered here, funded here, and staffed by the best talent the world sends us. When the world wants to build the future, it builds it in America.
4. America is the energy superpower of the world
For four consecutive years, the United States has set a new all-time record for total energy production. America is the largest producer of both oil and natural gas on the planet. In 2023, the US became the largest crude oil producer of any country in the history of the world, and it has kept setting records since. In 2025, America became the first nation ever to export more than 100 million tons of liquefied natural gas in a single year.
Cheap, abundant, homegrown energy is the foundation of everything else: manufacturing, transportation, data centers, national security. America has it in a way no other advanced economy does.
5. American households have never been wealthier
At the end of 2025, US household net worth reached a record of roughly $184 trillion. Let that number sink in. American families collectively own more wealth than at any point in the history of any nation on Earth.
That wealth is not an abstraction. It is retirement accounts, home equity, family businesses, and brokerage accounts built by people who saved, invested, and stayed the course through every panic the headlines could throw at them. Ownership is the American superpower, and more Americans own more assets than ever before.
6. America dominates the technology of the century
Artificial intelligence may be the most important technology of the next hundred years, and America is not merely participating. America is running away with it. Roughly half of the world’s notable AI models come out of the United States. America accounts for about 27 percent of all global research and development spending.
Every prior general-purpose technology, from electricity to the automobile to the internet, produced decades of productivity growth and wealth creation. American companies led every one of those waves. They are leading this one too.
7. America is where the world’s builders come to build
Nearly half of America’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. The world’s most ambitious people do not dream of moving to Beijing or Brussels. They dream of moving here. That is a compliment no propaganda can buy and no rival can replicate.
Add to that a startup culture with no equal: roughly half of all venture capital invested anywhere in the world flows to American companies. New business formation in the US has been running at historically elevated levels since 2020. The entrepreneurial engine is not slowing down. It is revving up.
8. America owns the intellectual high ground
Americans have won more Nobel Prizes than the citizens of any other nation, and it is not close. The majority of the world’s top research universities are American. The scientists, engineers, and doctors who will cure diseases, extend lifespans, and unlock new sources of energy are being trained on American campuses and funded by American capital right now.
Human ingenuity is the ultimate resource, and America has assembled the deepest pool of it ever gathered in one country.
9. America is the safest nation on Earth, and it is not close
The United States fields the most powerful military in human history. America spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on defense, more than the next several nations combined. The US Navy operates 11 aircraft carriers, more than the rest of the world’s supercarriers put together. American air power, submarine forces, satellite networks, and cyber capabilities have no peer.
Then add the alliances. Through NATO and mutual defense treaties across Asia and the Pacific, America anchors a security network covering dozens of nations. No country in history has ever assembled anything like it. And no adversary has ever landed a conventional invasion force on American soil. Two oceans, the world’s strongest military, and the world’s deepest alliance network make the United States the most secure great power that has ever existed.
Why does this matter to investors? Because capital flows to safety. The dollar is the world’s reserve currency and US Treasuries are the world’s safe haven asset precisely because the world trusts America to still be standing tomorrow, next year, and next century. Security is the invisible foundation under every American asset you own.
10. Betting on America has paid, through every single crisis, for 250 years
This is the fact that matters most to us as advisors. Through a revolution, a civil war, two world wars, a depression, a cold war, an oil embargo, a tech bust, a global financial crisis, and a pandemic, American markets have rewarded the patient owner and punished the panicked seller. Every single time.
The S&P 500 has delivered roughly 10 percent annualized returns over the last century, through every one of those crises. Every panic looked rational in the moment. Every panic was wrong in hindsight. The pessimists sounded smart. The optimists got wealthier.
Why the next 250 years look even brighter
History is a great start, but we do not invest in the past. Here is what has us most excited about what comes next.
The AI productivity boom is just beginning. The last time America deployed a general-purpose technology across the entire economy, in the 1990s internet buildout, productivity surged and living standards jumped. AI is a bigger wave, and America controls the chips, the models, the capital, and the talent.
The energy advantage is compounding. The technologies of the future, from AI data centers to advanced manufacturing to electrified transport, all run on abundant power. America produces more energy than any nation on Earth and keeps breaking its own records.
America is building again. Factory construction, chip fabrication plants, power infrastructure, and data centers are going up across the country at a pace not seen in generations. The reindustrialization of America is not a slogan. It is visible from the highway.
The demographic hand is strong. Among major developed economies, America’s workforce outlook stands apart. Talented people from every corner of the globe still line up to come here, work here, and build here. Nations that attract builders win. It is that simple.
Ownership keeps spreading. More Americans own stocks, homes, and businesses than ever before. Every new owner is a new stakeholder in American growth, and a new family with a shot at generational wealth.
American generosity has no equal. In 2025, Americans gave $617 billion to charity, crossing the $600 billion mark for the first time in history. No nation on Earth comes close, in total dollars or relative to the size of its economy. Wealth built in America does not just sit in accounts. It funds hospitals, universities, food banks, churches, medical research, and disaster relief around the world. The same country that produces more wealth than any other also gives more of it away. That is not a coincidence. That is character. And it is one more reason to believe the next 250 years will lift more people, in more places, than the first 250 did.
The Gatewood bottom line
For 250 years, the surest way to lose money has been to bet against the United States of America. The surest way to build wealth has been to own a piece of it and refuse to let go.
Panics will come. Headlines will scream. Someone on television will confidently explain why this time is different. It never has been, and we do not believe it will be now.
America’s first 250 years turned thirteen struggling colonies into the wealthiest, most innovative, most powerful nation in the history of the world. We think the best chapters are still unwritten. And we intend to make sure our clients own them.
If you want to talk through what that means for your portfolio — and how Gatewood positions families to benefit from the next chapter of American growth — we would love that conversation. Schedule a call with our team today.
Happy 250th, America. We are just getting started.
Sources:
- McKinsey & Company, “Sustaining America’s Competitive Edge,” May 2026. https://www.mckinsey.com
- International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, April 2026. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO
- US Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review, May 2026. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/
- US Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas Monthly, March 2026. https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/monthly/
- Federal Reserve Board, Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1), March 19, 2026. https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/
- US LNG exports of 111 million metric tons in 2025 (EIA data as reported). https://www.eia.gov
- American Immigration Council, “New American Fortune 500.” https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/new-american-fortune-500
- Long-run S&P 500 total return data: Ibbotson/Morningstar SBBI Historical Return Series. https://www.morningstar.com
- SIPRI Military Expenditure Database; US Department of Defense budget materials; US Navy fleet data. https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
- Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2026: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2025, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. https://givingusa.org
- Warren Buffett, Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders, February 2021. https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2020ltr.pdf
Important Disclosures:
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly.
Investing involves risk including loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss.
The fast price swings in commodities will result in significant volatility in an investor’s holdings. Commodities include increased risks, such as political, economic, and currency instability, and may not be suitable for all investors.
Government bonds and Treasury bills are guaranteed by the US government as to the timely payment of principal and interest and, if held to maturity, offer a fixed rate of return and fixed principal value.
