I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the good professor again. He says, "cryptocurrencies still don’t seem to have any real use case other than money-laundering." Au contraire. They have also solved the age-old problem of the kidnapper or other extortionist of being caught when they collect the ransom. Cryptocurrencies have juiced the extortion business biggly. Indeed I believe that it is far greater than we hear about because victims like to keep their losses quiet.
The US should make it illegal for publicly traded corporations and municipalities to pay off ransomware hackers. If the hackers stopped getting paid then there would be a lot fewer ransomware attacks.
It's a nice idea, but I wouldn't bet on it. Besides, the main reason the US doesn't make it illegal is in the hope - which sometimes works - they can track who the payment goes to and catch them in the act. After all, a payment in crypto isn't really worth anything until it's converted to a currency that's actually usable in the real world.
We could set minimum security standards & audit them regularly. Then people will get anniyed with the inconvienence of secutity and constant expense of meeting new threats and tell us to stop.
It may be that well-adjusted payoffs are cheaper than avoiding the cracks.
I have my own conspiracy theory that for the last 20 years that Putin has been skimming off 5% of Russia's GDP and sending it (recently in Bitcoin) to his useful idiots around the world. Are you reading this Donald? Tulsi?
Lots of above-asking cash purchases of Trump condos by Russians. And Trump’s stupid son (I forget which stupid son) saying they get a lot of money from Russia. So yeah.
We're in a "tRumpsky cycle" at the moment re: crypto, starting with tRump's wholesale embracing of the crypto world - after wealthy backers sent millions to his campaign - next, releasing his own "meme coin" - thereby enriching himself with "transaction fees" - then doing a soft rug-pull, costing his gullible followers millions in lost investment dollars. And pushing hard for something called a "cryptocurrency stockpile", a government-backed "digital warehouse" offering the full faith and credit of the US Treasury as...well, as collateral, similar to a stablecoin.
tRump, of course, is taking major positions in crypto, and making the equivalent of vaporware convertible into hard cash...nice work if you can get it.
Trump got hundreds of millions of dollars from Musk alone. Who knows what the total take from all oligarchs was. More than anything else, the creation of the $Trump coin shows that the former Shining City On The Hill is now just a whorehouse.
Standard advice from professional responsibility lawyers: A law firm should have a crypto account so that if they are hacked, they will be ready to pay the ransom to protect client confidences.
Or in air gapped files which is my solution. Of course you have to trust your employees for any of these precautions to work. My doesn't because I still have to send the damn tax form into the IRS so now Musk and his baby hackers have it all, despite my deliberate care over the years
NYSE was shut down because Wall Street (that's not just a name for the exchange) is located in lower Manhattan. The telephone/data network down there was badly compromised.
Well said but I think the MuT (Musk-Trump) duo's relentless attack on the rule of law itself combined with a spineless Congress threatens our role as safe haven for investors. With MuT's crazy, terrorist-like actions, are the T-Bills really a "risk-free" investment? Is the dollar really the currency I want to hold? I'm no economist and so would be interested in your views on this.
Elon Musk is going to have Donald Trump order the U.S. Treasury to issue a new "gold" coin. It will have Elon Musk's face engraved on one side, and Donald Trump's ass on the other. It will be called the Dunning-Kruegerand, and it's value will be determined moment-to-moment by how much ketamine is in Musk's bloodstream.
Unfortunately that data is only useful to try and sell us things, and when they blow up the economy it's value plummets. Somehow these brilliant Masters of The Universe don't understand the single most basic rule of economics: you can't squeeze a profit out of broke people.
Correct on collecting from broke people, but that’s another great point you have made. To the billionaires, selling more sometimes is not the point. Control is. Owning all three branches of government is. Buying and controlling the votes is the point.
False. Behavioral Surplus is quite valuable, and has many applications. Influencing political campaigns being the big one. Reinforcing identity politics into radicalization another.
Chapter 5 Notes commercial algorithms applied to political influence ( or what Musks $299 million can buy from Meta, Cambridge Analytica style)
Political influencing campaigns on social media leverage the same persuasion and manipulation techniques used in commercial advertising, but they are tailored to shape political opinions, behaviors, and ultimately, election outcomes. Here’s how these methods are applied in the political sphere:
1. Microtargeting:
• Application: Political campaigns analyze user data to segment voters based on demographics, beliefs, and past behaviors. By creating hyper-targeted messages, they can deliver distinct political ads or content that resonate with specific groups—for instance, addressing economic concerns for one segment while emphasizing cultural values for another. This precision increases the likelihood of swaying opinions and influencing voting behavior.
2. Emotional Appeals:
• Application: Campaigns craft messages designed to trigger strong emotional responses, such as fear of societal change, hope for a better future, or anger at perceived injustices. By tapping into these emotional states, political influencers can mobilize support or incite opposition. For example, ads highlighting crime rates or threats to national security are used to evoke fear, while others might promote unity and progress to inspire hope.
3. Social Proof and Herd Behavior:
• Application: Social media campaigns often use endorsements, testimonials, or viral content that suggests widespread support for a candidate or policy. By showcasing a narrative that “everyone is on board,” these campaigns can create a bandwagon effect where individuals feel compelled to align with the majority view, even if they were initially undecided.
4. Nudging through Choice Architecture:
• Application: Political content is strategically placed within social media feeds and digital environments in ways that subtly guide users toward a particular perspective. For instance, platforms might be designed to highlight certain political posts over others, or default options in online voting information tools might favor a particular candidate, influencing decision-making without overt persuasion.
5. Scarcity and Urgency Messaging:
• Application: Political campaigns use urgency by promoting “limited time” events such as rallies, fundraising deadlines, or urgent calls to action (like voter registration drives). These time-sensitive messages prompt immediate responses and can mobilize voters quickly, often leveraging the fear of missing out on a crucial political moment.
6. Retargeting:
• Application: Once users engage with political content—such as clicking on an ad or watching a campaign video—they are continually retargeted with similar messages. This repeated exposure reinforces the political narrative, keeps the campaign top-of-mind, and incrementally shifts opinions over time.
7. Personalized Content and Recommendations:
• Application: Using adaptive algorithms, political campaigns deliver tailored content based on a user’s online behavior. For instance, if an individual frequently engages with content about economic policy, they might see more ads discussing tax reforms or job creation initiatives. This personalization deepens the connection between the voter and the political message, making it appear directly relevant to their personal interests.
8. Cognitive Bias Exploitation:
• Application: Political messaging is often framed to reinforce confirmation biases—presenting information in ways that align with pre-existing beliefs. Whether it’s through selective fact presentation or framing events to emphasize a particular narrative, these techniques ensure that individuals are more receptive to the campaign’s message, as it validates their worldview.
9. Influencer Endorsements:
• Application: Trusted public figures, community leaders, or social media influencers are enlisted to endorse political candidates or causes. Their endorsements can lend credibility to a campaign, making the political message more persuasive by leveraging the existing trust and rapport between the influencer and their followers.
10. Adaptive Algorithms:
• Application: Political campaigns continuously analyze engagement metrics and adjust their strategies in real time. By monitoring which messages and formats are most effective, campaigns can refine their content and targeting strategies, ensuring that their messaging remains relevant and influential as voter opinions evolve.
In summary, by combining sophisticated data analytics with these targeted persuasion techniques, political influencing campaigns on social media are able to craft highly customized and emotionally charged messages that can subtly shape voter behavior. This convergence of technology and psychological manipulation raises important questions about transparency, the ethics of voter influence, and the overall integrity of democratic processes.
Making empty threats gets you nowhere. I buy a lot of stuff from Lowes, and that's not going to change. That's why I have one of their charge cards in my wallet.
More subtle than that. Just being online, even here, your data points, likes, follows, comments, dm’s…, are being harvested packaged and traded by data brokerages without our knowledge, and without your consent. “Zucked” Roger McNamee
The only encouraging thing for me is that I have a fair amount of experience with information storage and retrieval. It's going to take him a very long time to get that information out of the government databases and into his own.
“Advertisers compete and pay for micro seconds of your attention”- Dr Tim Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons for the 21st Century ( 2nd edition is longer and used Ukraine as a case study. Maybe the 3rd edition will add our resistance here in ‘merica.
Would be very grateful to hear from Paul on this point, and on the prospect of MuskTrump converting federal holdings (the Social Security Trust Fund for example!) into crypto to drain those coffers into private hands.
This is my biggest worry. I'll be honest. My retirement account is tiny compared to most everyone else's on here. But that makes me more panicky. I don't have plural millions or even a whole one million. If Trump cooks the dollar, then what? But valuations are down due to interest rates. I'd take anyone with a working crystal ball out for a steak dinner if they could advice me one way or the other whether to take losses and get out of the US dollar, or hang on and be patient.
I used to have a lot of my IRA invested in long-term treasuries. They went consistently down for five years. I finally moved everything out of that fund last year. I'm not looking back. I asked my adviser why his firm called these the "gold standard." He did not answer me.
It's not clear to me either but I'll share my thoughts for what it's worth (no steak required :-)). Inflation is likely to go up which implies to me that I should weight more to stocks. On the other hand, with the huge disruption the MuT duo is causing to the economy, reduced overall spending seems possible too. That might suggest non-stock investments. So does that mean gold or, god forbid, crypto makes sense? Since I never understood the real value of gold or especially crypto, I'm personally avoiding that for right now. Bottom line - I'm confused too but I am holding a pretty high cash percentage in my portfolio at the moment...not as high as Buffet but up there for me.
Thanks and this is what's worrying me. I could sell, but would take a hit for what I bought before interest rates went up. Given a tiny portfolio, I'm fully invested. Mostly bonds though no treasuries. It has worked since it was decent income and I didn't care about price fluctuations as long as not selling. But now? Cashing out into cash in US dollars is not making a lot of sense to me either. I will lose money on some bonds, but mostly I fear the collapse of the dollar completely if these hints around the edges I've heard - those throw away comments both Trump and Musk like to make - about not having to pay some of the debt and declaring it illegitimate come to fruition. My only hope is that there are some big money players who will walk into the room and stop Trump at that point, since lots of bigger money, including banking, will crumble if Trump blows off bond payments. But if I did jump, the next question is which currency? What a mess.
Actually this makes a lot of sense. At 70 I remember the people whose lives were ravaged by Polio. I knew a kid in my kindergarten class who died of post-measles pneumonia. My grandmother had Smallpox when she was 17 - she was one of the lucky ones - half of the town died. I worked a summer in an Easter Seals camp in 1969. I saw the kids whose mothers caught Rubella in the first trimester. I personally almost died of Mumps encephalitis. But most people around today have never seen these things. So, they don’t understand the risks of not vaccinating. They have only to look at the outbreak going on now in Texas.
The anti-measles movement began in the UK after the Lancet published the research data of Doctor Andrew Wakefield. That data supposedly showed that the measles vaccine caused autism. In spite of the fact that Wakefield was proven to have faked his data and his medical license had been revoked, the US media gave a platform to parents who had been conned by his scam. I saw multiple interviews with Jenny McCarthy and other parents convinced their children’s autism was caused by the vaccine but those shows did not present the facts about Wakefield’s con. Nor did I ever see an interview with someone who is still living with damage caused by measles — blindness, for example — or who lost loved ones to that dangerous, highly infectious disease. Those shows did have doctors who recited dry statistical analyses but it is stories of the effects on real people, not stats, that can get through to people. Just as the story about your grandmother made the dangers of smallpox real for you.
I had a similar experience. When I was a kid my cousin and I were shocked when we saw the page in my grandfather’s family bible listing births and deaths. His six youngest siblings had all died over a few months span. My aunt explained they had died in a diphtheria epidemic. She also emphasized that the “D” in the DPT vaccine we hated getting stands for diptheria and that vaccine ensured we would never suffer from that horrific disease — a disease that most people today know nothing about.
Few seem to realize that the revocation of a professional license and the retraction of published research are the most devastating revelations of dishonor and incompetence that can befall a professional, a scientist, or a reseacher.
Your comment about diphtheria reminds of the story about the Alaskan sled dog Balto who led a team of huskies that carried the anti-toxin that saved dozens of children.
I mentioned elsewhere on Substack today that my first job was assistant counsellor in an Easter Seals Camp in 1969. We had lots of kids with severe Autism - but none of them were labeled as that.
I agree. I remember well the fear of polio that we all felt before Salk’s vaccine was available. My husband’s aunt, the mother of three young children, contracted polio a year or so before that vaccine became widely available. She spent the rest of her life — more than twenty years — as a quadriplegic, lying in a hospital bed in the family’s dining room. The media should be telling people stories like this every time they cover the anti-vaxxers. They should also tell people that Salk refused to patent his vaccine, choosing the greater good over personal wealth, a novel concept to people in this era of bowing down to billionaire tech bros who only care about us little people as customers, not humans.
To say it is a cult is true . They idolize the leader of the cult and blindly follow.. The cult leader has his many groups that threaten senators and congress and they admit they were threatened so the follow him… it is only when we get people off their couches to register and vote out republicans that we will have any chance to stop the fallout……
It really is amazing. A lot of the people who voted for Trump are very much in the "well if it doesn't impact me, why should I care?" camp. But when it comes to COVID, I know numerous who were really ill or lost family members and they still don't seem to care.
Rubella is one you don't hear about often anymore. As an adult it isn't particularly bad, it was called the three day measles. Then they linked it to birth defects. I think it was in the news in the 70s or 80s. It was one of the reasons they wanted people to get the mmr vaccine even if they were like me and had measles.
I took MMR as a medical student because I knew I had Obstetrics rotations coming up and didn’t want to accidentally transmit anything to a prpegnant woman. It was no big deal - even though I had had all three as a kid.
The Rubella epidemics in Europe and the US in the early 1960s resulted in the first vaccine in 1969. News media covered it in the 1970s-1980s as a kind of PSA back when they felt some social responsibility. Now it’s solely about ratings, likes and advertising dollars.
When I was about 5, I met an older person who survived polio, but walked very gingerly with crutches because of it. He told me about polio, and about how his best friend survive measles but was deaf afterwards, and lost his mother and 3 of his 5 siblings.
Years ago, a friend was buying into the nonsense about HPV vax making kids "promiscuous." Until her sister got HPV-related cervical cancer. Her 12 year old daughter got the vax and was never the wiser.
I got all my kids the HPV vax when they were in their teens and pre-teens. At 26, Oldest asked to be taken for an HPV test, bc they thought they had contracted it. I said, "Of course, but it's unlikely." Why? Oldest was vaccinated, and didn't even realize they were. Test was negative.
It's pretty similar too to the talking point that hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, who make hard times.
Agreed. You cited vaccination. I’d add fascism and authoritarianism in general. We’ve had 80 years of relative freedom from authoritarian governments in the West. People have lost the memory of what living under those regimes means. I’m 75. My parents and many in my family fought the Nazis. So I have a direct link to that era. However, many people alive now don’t. They take for granted that things could never get as bad as they did under the Nazis. Just as too many unfortunately found out in the 1930s and 1940s, a very rude awakening could be on the immediate horizon.
It's true! The people making vaccine decisions today are mostly Millennials -- who have never experienced a routine outbreak of a communicable disease like measles.
We're in a "tRumpsky cycle" right now re: cryptocurrencies, as King Donald has taken major positions in the crypto world, from promoting shamelessly his "memecoin" (then doing a soft rug-pull to cause his gullible supporters to lose collectively millions of dollars) to actively seeking a government-sponsored "cryptocurrency stockpile", which in fact ascribes "the full faith and credit" of the US government in backstopping the notional "value" of cryptocurrency.
Grift and graft on steroids...make that on Ketamine.
My grandpa, born 1921, kept cash in the underside of his mattress until he died in 2015. Not much -- merely a financial cushion, no pun intended -- but that Depression habit was real and it stuck with him his entire life.
My grandfather, born in the late 1800s, bought all sorts of gold "commemorative" coins. He was sure the economy would collapse any time. One of my uncles said he had visions of this seventy-year-old man driving through the debris trying to buy things with gold coins. The first person he met would've taken it all away from him.
TD. Few Americans know that the initials stand for Toronto Dominion. But recent events are actually pushing TD to get out of it's US operations and sell them.!
Quite so. Smith's French was wretched and the phrase originated with the French Physiocrats. Smith warned that businesses were just as capable as distorting the free market as government thus had to be regulated. He also warned against companies where the managers are not the owners. To follow Smith truly is to go down a path usually identified with the radical left.
One only has to look at the history of the British East India Company, its corruption of the British parliament and its horrific misrule of Bengal and other parts of India, all of which were a target of Smith's criticism in The Wealth of Nations.
Musk strikes me as a bit of a Robert Clive wannabe.
Read Friedman or Stigler expounding on Adam Smith and you understand why members of the Nobel family didn't want to be associated with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize.
If all independent institutions are becoming Trump and Musk toy, why whould any foreign investor go in the US? After all it means that you're one twitter post away from losing your money.
I'm curious to know the current mood of professionals on this one, maybe i'm overreacting.
One dynamic I wish you wpuld further explore is the mutual gravitational pull between Trumpism and the Silicon Valley libertarianism of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Having just read The Contrarian by Chafkin about Thiel, one sees a 40 year old man naming companies after magic stones and swords in Tolkien, or the respective cities of Superman and Batman. The book is named The Contrarian.
There is a swashbuckling immaturity and arrested development to a culture that is highly self-absorbed and entitled that rejects all "isms" but rebellion and libertarianism. As the Sherlock character used to loudly proclaim "I am a high-functioning sociopath".
Indeed someone would benefit us all by nailing down the Musk-Trump dance. It's very possible Musk is not full MAGA as much as purely opportunistic. To a dedicated libertarian, government is a compromise too far. This smacks of opportunity greased by a $277M ticket to get into Trumpworld. It almost seems that whatever the unholy pact is the dynamic Musk brings may not be to please Trump as much as taking advantage of America's (and Putin's) favorite useful idiot.
I read that the defense department has been ordered to spend $450 million on electric armored cars. The Tesla truck seems to be the only available platform. So, the muskrat just made $200 million off his investment in DonnyJon.
As I noted in a comment in January, international law enforcement officials estimate that AT LEAST 50% of all crypto transactions are used for money laundering, i.e. the laundering of financial crime--bribery, extortion, fraud, illicit goods (drugs), tax evasion, etc. For those with illicit proceeds, it is much easier to buy and sell a crypto asset than put buckets of $20 bills on a barge and/or smurf the illicit proceeds through ATMS at $100 a transaction.
Second, Trump, at his core, is a salesman. Note for example the press conferences at 2 weeks by Leavitt and 1 month by Miller touting the administrations "achievements". They are selling achievements that didn't happen.
But Trump is also a very vindictive salesman. If you don't buy what he is selling, he seeks revenge. That is what is happening with NYC. That is what happened with congestion priceing. Self-proclaimed King (of NYC) Trump cancelled congestion pricing (and let Eric Adams off) because most of NYC isn't buying what Trump is selling and he is mad about that. He had to leave town. (Anyone that ever dealt with him in NYC knows he is a con man--even back in the 1980s my bank wouldn't lend money to him. It was a character issue.
So stopping congestion pricing was just more Trump retribution.
Last, Professor Krugman is right. The most probable scenario is that all this bad policy and retribution ends in calamity. And it will be a large enough calamity for the unengaged to sit up and take notice. No matter how you tease out the future (unless you believe Trump will have an Ebenezer Scrooge moment...NOT!), this bad policy, incompetence, and retribution ends in not just one calamity, but in many calamities. Several and maybe simultaneous calamities: a financial calamity, a health calamity, a social calamity, and who know what other kind.
Unfortunately, calamities don't pick and choose their victims. As I know from up a close and personal experience of the 2008 financial crisis, even the best can get washed away.
If crypto ends up taking over the money laundering world it's going to cause a crash in Miami real estate sales, probably London and Manhattan also. On a different topic, when Trump's financial collapse hits, he'll blame Biden and illegal immigrants, and his MAGA lemmings will believe him.
Congestion pricing has made a tremendous and pleasant difference in life on both sides of the river. The towns around the George Washington Bridge are far easier to navigate during the daytime hours because the drop in traffic is astonishing.
I don’t live there but it seems a reasonable solution to at least try. I don’t understand how what is totally a local matter becomes something the president wants to control.
As I understand it, the proceeds are/were to be used to keep subway and bus fares down. Thus, interfering with it hurts the poor the most. The Orangutan King >loves< hurting the poor.
Sort of. The money is supposed to be used to pay for long-overdue improvements to the system. The State has been stalling on making these improvements for decades.
Some of his Wall St. donors complained? It is all well and good to spend a few million to get friendly politicians in office, a $15 commute charge is something that they can't tolerate. Where is the payback for them? That is the only thing I can figure.
Trump is very enthusiastic about burning gas (petrol we call it). He will sabotage the subway if you don't start getting in your cars and burning gas. That's what you're for.
On a recent weekday I drove to Bushwick from Philly to visit a family member. I went through the Holland Tunnel and across Canal Street to the bridge and the streets were almost empty.
IMO, Trump's chaos around tariffs is already causing a pullback in capital spending that could easily trigger the next recession.
As just one example, Ford is delaying the refresh of its F-150 and uncertainty around tariffs is being credited as a major part of the reason:
"The automotive industry will be turned upside down over the next few years as nearly all automakers are delaying or changing their product plans amid policy uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration and lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles, a source said."
“The chaos and uncertainty plaguing the North American auto industry, which is under the constant threat of tariffs and a dismantling of (electric vehicle) regulations from the United States, are having real-time impacts on workers and corporate decisions," Unifor National President Lana Payne said in a statement. "We have been saying this as a union from day one that the threats are also dangerous to our economy and to Canadian jobs.”
The beginning of the end of our financial system came when banks started selling “products” (instead of providing “services”. That language never made sense. It still sounds crass. Elite MBA mills simply reinvented new ways to fleece old sheep, in order to justify outrageous tuitions.
While we're distracted by a renamed Gulf of Mexico, we're making less fuss over the reopening of LNG extraction (for export mostly) along the already eroded southern Louisiana coastline. USA first exported LNG in 2016. By 2023 it was the world’s top exporter, surpassing Qatar, reordering world markets in Europe and Asia. ***Exports drove up domestic energy prices & created $1B in health costs. 2/14/25 Trump green-lit the LNG exports that Biden paused over climate concerns. (Thanks to "Grist" for educating us on all things energy) LNG Venture Global's last project transformed the lives of 23,000 who live in Plaquemines parish. Streets choked with truck traffic, marsh overrun with pipelines, air filled with pollution from flares & leaks. Acres of wetland disappeared beneath concrete. Gulf of Gas
As I'm not an economist and have a very modest portfolio of investments, my mind went south when reading this, south to a thought or two about Melania, who might or might not merit my antipathy. She's grifted right along with her husband, which was innocuous enough when she was just selling face cream , but now she's into crypto. A couple of years ago I found myself explaining why he should stop investing in it to a dear young friend who'd been sucked in by right leaning influencers. It's a scam, I insisted, Like Melania--fake, expensive, ultimately for sale to those foolish enough to bite the lure. What does that say about the man who actually married her?
That's why they're married. They're two of a kind. Their relationship - like all of their relationships - is transactional. What it says about him is also what it says about her.
It's no coincidence that they both unleashed their crypto currencies - $KingMAGAcoin and $QueenMAGAcoin - simultaneously.
I’m sure she collects a substantial fee every time she accompanies him anywhere or sits on an adjacent couch. If she prays every night, it is probably for his demise.
The S&L collapse and the 2008 collapse were big warning flags and our response was not sufficient. Today I think we are seeing the endgame of the Reagan policy of "starve the beast." I learned in 4th grade that capitalism is a great system but laissez faire capitalism cannot be allowed. With no government regulation someday we will have four or five corporations left and they will be the real government. The regulation by the federal government is there to protect all the people from the excesses of corporations. Reagan sold the American citizenry on the idea that government regulations were aimed at them, not at protecting them. "Starve the beast" is aimed at pulling the teeth of the ability of the federal government to work.
For many years I have been deeply worried for the US democracy, seeing almost nobody aware of fascism knocking on its door. I always found great solace in reading Paul Krugman, who has been warning us coherently, eloquently and tirelessly that the GOP is turning, slowly but surely, into a fascist movement. What fascists do, first and foremost, is to destroy what works since they cannot live in harmony with their environment and their fellow human beings - almost a definition of a their movement.
So I am surprised and worried to read here: 'Sometimes — actually, quite often — it seems as if the Musk/Trump administration tries to undermine successful government policies precisely because they’ve been successful.' This is for people who do not know anything about fascism and/or history, it should not be for this platform where we must go beyond behaving as if the present administration represents anything sane and/or is a part of a democratic process.
We talk of a movement gone crazy and bent on destroying everything, but everything, that democracy represents. This is already fascism, albeit in its beginning stage. And precisely due to Krugman's writing over the years, we even know quite well how and why it happened. It was important then to keep analysing what was going on, in order to prevent them winning. But now, with the insurrectionist-in-chief pardoning the criminals that he incited, and speaking openly of the elimination/deportation of Palestinians - more a nazi than a fascist move - and everything else that directly threatens the core of democracy and the rule of law, it is high time, I believe from the bottom of my heart, to affront the fascism. It is here, staring at us and asking us to act.
Canadian banks and Canadain real estate passed through the great recession unscathed due to the high degree of regulation and the notoriusly conservative management. These regulations were the very things that DJT recently railed about recently when arguing Canadians are "unfair" to US banks preventing them to do business there (which is a lie, most of the leading global banks have presence here.) - Canadian banks are a stumbling block to his plan to invade Canada.
For most of us our investments are tied up in retirement accounts. We've never had enough extra money to have pure investment funds, but we do have a decent SEP IRA. Is it possible to get our retirement money out of the US without a huge penalty?
I also just listened to SCAM INC on the Economist which highlighted the local mid-west bank that got hit with pig butchering. Think about how much the global scammers, who rival global drug traffickers, would pay for the IRS/SOCIAL SECURITY information and we have gangs of Muskovites without real security clearances rifling unfettered through everything.
No, it isn't. If you put the money in before taxes, you must pay taxes on it as you take it out. That puts you in the Alternate Minimum Tax bracket in a big hurry. I think the best you can do is to shift funds from investments in US entities to investments overseas. I've done some of that myself. There's still the saying that, when the US sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the good professor again. He says, "cryptocurrencies still don’t seem to have any real use case other than money-laundering." Au contraire. They have also solved the age-old problem of the kidnapper or other extortionist of being caught when they collect the ransom. Cryptocurrencies have juiced the extortion business biggly. Indeed I believe that it is far greater than we hear about because victims like to keep their losses quiet.
The US should make it illegal for publicly traded corporations and municipalities to pay off ransomware hackers. If the hackers stopped getting paid then there would be a lot fewer ransomware attacks.
What we're more likely to see is a law declaring that ransomware hackers may only be paid in $TRUMP tokens.
What was the suspension here for? This seemed like a funny little metaphor.
It's a nice idea, but I wouldn't bet on it. Besides, the main reason the US doesn't make it illegal is in the hope - which sometimes works - they can track who the payment goes to and catch them in the act. After all, a payment in crypto isn't really worth anything until it's converted to a currency that's actually usable in the real world.
Until Kash Patel guts the FBI, thus making it impossible to trace and recover anything.
We could set minimum security standards & audit them regularly. Then people will get anniyed with the inconvienence of secutity and constant expense of meeting new threats and tell us to stop.
It may be that well-adjusted payoffs are cheaper than avoiding the cracks.
I have my own conspiracy theory that for the last 20 years that Putin has been skimming off 5% of Russia's GDP and sending it (recently in Bitcoin) to his useful idiots around the world. Are you reading this Donald? Tulsi?
Lots of above-asking cash purchases of Trump condos by Russians. And Trump’s stupid son (I forget which stupid son) saying they get a lot of money from Russia. So yeah.
That was Eric Trump... https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/
Actually, that >is< money laundering.
We're in a "tRumpsky cycle" at the moment re: crypto, starting with tRump's wholesale embracing of the crypto world - after wealthy backers sent millions to his campaign - next, releasing his own "meme coin" - thereby enriching himself with "transaction fees" - then doing a soft rug-pull, costing his gullible followers millions in lost investment dollars. And pushing hard for something called a "cryptocurrency stockpile", a government-backed "digital warehouse" offering the full faith and credit of the US Treasury as...well, as collateral, similar to a stablecoin.
tRump, of course, is taking major positions in crypto, and making the equivalent of vaporware convertible into hard cash...nice work if you can get it.
Trump got hundreds of millions of dollars from Musk alone. Who knows what the total take from all oligarchs was. More than anything else, the creation of the $Trump coin shows that the former Shining City On The Hill is now just a whorehouse.
Standard advice from professional responsibility lawyers: A law firm should have a crypto account so that if they are hacked, they will be ready to pay the ransom to protect client confidences.
A less-expensive and less dirty solution to that is to keep client files on paper.
Or in air gapped files which is my solution. Of course you have to trust your employees for any of these precautions to work. My doesn't because I still have to send the damn tax form into the IRS so now Musk and his baby hackers have it all, despite my deliberate care over the years
So when things fall apart we'll have a "Lindbergh's baby" moment?
Imagine the financial silence if crypto-king Donald decides to shut down the grid?
No way? NYSE was shutdown for a week around 9-11.
NYSE was shut down because Wall Street (that's not just a name for the exchange) is located in lower Manhattan. The telephone/data network down there was badly compromised.
Crimes pays (crypto).
Other uses include attention gained by commenters framing money laundering as the specific crime.
Well said but I think the MuT (Musk-Trump) duo's relentless attack on the rule of law itself combined with a spineless Congress threatens our role as safe haven for investors. With MuT's crazy, terrorist-like actions, are the T-Bills really a "risk-free" investment? Is the dollar really the currency I want to hold? I'm no economist and so would be interested in your views on this.
Elon Musk is going to have Donald Trump order the U.S. Treasury to issue a new "gold" coin. It will have Elon Musk's face engraved on one side, and Donald Trump's ass on the other. It will be called the Dunning-Kruegerand, and it's value will be determined moment-to-moment by how much ketamine is in Musk's bloodstream.
Gold is obsolete. Humans are the new mine, and our data is the new gold of the Surveillance Capital era.
Unfortunately that data is only useful to try and sell us things, and when they blow up the economy it's value plummets. Somehow these brilliant Masters of The Universe don't understand the single most basic rule of economics: you can't squeeze a profit out of broke people.
Correct on collecting from broke people, but that’s another great point you have made. To the billionaires, selling more sometimes is not the point. Control is. Owning all three branches of government is. Buying and controlling the votes is the point.
False. Behavioral Surplus is quite valuable, and has many applications. Influencing political campaigns being the big one. Reinforcing identity politics into radicalization another.
Chapter 5 Notes commercial algorithms applied to political influence ( or what Musks $299 million can buy from Meta, Cambridge Analytica style)
Political influencing campaigns on social media leverage the same persuasion and manipulation techniques used in commercial advertising, but they are tailored to shape political opinions, behaviors, and ultimately, election outcomes. Here’s how these methods are applied in the political sphere:
1. Microtargeting:
• Application: Political campaigns analyze user data to segment voters based on demographics, beliefs, and past behaviors. By creating hyper-targeted messages, they can deliver distinct political ads or content that resonate with specific groups—for instance, addressing economic concerns for one segment while emphasizing cultural values for another. This precision increases the likelihood of swaying opinions and influencing voting behavior.
2. Emotional Appeals:
• Application: Campaigns craft messages designed to trigger strong emotional responses, such as fear of societal change, hope for a better future, or anger at perceived injustices. By tapping into these emotional states, political influencers can mobilize support or incite opposition. For example, ads highlighting crime rates or threats to national security are used to evoke fear, while others might promote unity and progress to inspire hope.
3. Social Proof and Herd Behavior:
• Application: Social media campaigns often use endorsements, testimonials, or viral content that suggests widespread support for a candidate or policy. By showcasing a narrative that “everyone is on board,” these campaigns can create a bandwagon effect where individuals feel compelled to align with the majority view, even if they were initially undecided.
4. Nudging through Choice Architecture:
• Application: Political content is strategically placed within social media feeds and digital environments in ways that subtly guide users toward a particular perspective. For instance, platforms might be designed to highlight certain political posts over others, or default options in online voting information tools might favor a particular candidate, influencing decision-making without overt persuasion.
5. Scarcity and Urgency Messaging:
• Application: Political campaigns use urgency by promoting “limited time” events such as rallies, fundraising deadlines, or urgent calls to action (like voter registration drives). These time-sensitive messages prompt immediate responses and can mobilize voters quickly, often leveraging the fear of missing out on a crucial political moment.
6. Retargeting:
• Application: Once users engage with political content—such as clicking on an ad or watching a campaign video—they are continually retargeted with similar messages. This repeated exposure reinforces the political narrative, keeps the campaign top-of-mind, and incrementally shifts opinions over time.
7. Personalized Content and Recommendations:
• Application: Using adaptive algorithms, political campaigns deliver tailored content based on a user’s online behavior. For instance, if an individual frequently engages with content about economic policy, they might see more ads discussing tax reforms or job creation initiatives. This personalization deepens the connection between the voter and the political message, making it appear directly relevant to their personal interests.
8. Cognitive Bias Exploitation:
• Application: Political messaging is often framed to reinforce confirmation biases—presenting information in ways that align with pre-existing beliefs. Whether it’s through selective fact presentation or framing events to emphasize a particular narrative, these techniques ensure that individuals are more receptive to the campaign’s message, as it validates their worldview.
9. Influencer Endorsements:
• Application: Trusted public figures, community leaders, or social media influencers are enlisted to endorse political candidates or causes. Their endorsements can lend credibility to a campaign, making the political message more persuasive by leveraging the existing trust and rapport between the influencer and their followers.
10. Adaptive Algorithms:
• Application: Political campaigns continuously analyze engagement metrics and adjust their strategies in real time. By monitoring which messages and formats are most effective, campaigns can refine their content and targeting strategies, ensuring that their messaging remains relevant and influential as voter opinions evolve.
In summary, by combining sophisticated data analytics with these targeted persuasion techniques, political influencing campaigns on social media are able to craft highly customized and emotionally charged messages that can subtly shape voter behavior. This convergence of technology and psychological manipulation raises important questions about transparency, the ethics of voter influence, and the overall integrity of democratic processes.
Scary but thanks for sharing. What’s the book you’re referencing, please?
Would you like to complete a brief survey?
I get this constantly now from everything and everyone i do business with.
I get mail from Lowes asking me to complete a "review" of a bolt I bought a few days ago. What am I supposed to say about a 1/4-20 bolt?
"I bought this bolt and got screwed. These people are nuts for charging that much for a fastener! I'm really torqued off about this."
Reply that you won't be shopping there anymore because of how they changed their DEI policy
Making empty threats gets you nowhere. I buy a lot of stuff from Lowes, and that's not going to change. That's why I have one of their charge cards in my wallet.
More subtle than that. Just being online, even here, your data points, likes, follows, comments, dm’s…, are being harvested packaged and traded by data brokerages without our knowledge, and without your consent. “Zucked” Roger McNamee
I get a survey for buying aspirin at CVS. Which requires zero help finding the product and self-checkout. Nevertheless, they persist!
Yes, Musk is mining the federal database. He isn't looking for fraud, waste or abuse.
The only encouraging thing for me is that I have a fair amount of experience with information storage and retrieval. It's going to take him a very long time to get that information out of the government databases and into his own.
I know nothinng so I really hope so
Unfortunately so. Especially in this administration of grifters supreme. We are being sold out by the minute.
“Advertisers compete and pay for micro seconds of your attention”- Dr Tim Snyder, On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons for the 21st Century ( 2nd edition is longer and used Ukraine as a case study. Maybe the 3rd edition will add our resistance here in ‘merica.
😂
Ok- You win the interwebs today for that one!
How will you tell, they are both centered on an incontinent hole!
Would be very grateful to hear from Paul on this point, and on the prospect of MuskTrump converting federal holdings (the Social Security Trust Fund for example!) into crypto to drain those coffers into private hands.
Trump is already paving this path, making comments about US bonds.
Missed that, what is MuT saying about bonds?
That we "may not owe as much as we thought" in terms of treasury bonds, hinting at default.
Same. It’s to hard to catch all the nuggets when the zone gets flooded daily.
Hourly. Minute by minute.
This is my biggest worry. I'll be honest. My retirement account is tiny compared to most everyone else's on here. But that makes me more panicky. I don't have plural millions or even a whole one million. If Trump cooks the dollar, then what? But valuations are down due to interest rates. I'd take anyone with a working crystal ball out for a steak dinner if they could advice me one way or the other whether to take losses and get out of the US dollar, or hang on and be patient.
I used to have a lot of my IRA invested in long-term treasuries. They went consistently down for five years. I finally moved everything out of that fund last year. I'm not looking back. I asked my adviser why his firm called these the "gold standard." He did not answer me.
It's not clear to me either but I'll share my thoughts for what it's worth (no steak required :-)). Inflation is likely to go up which implies to me that I should weight more to stocks. On the other hand, with the huge disruption the MuT duo is causing to the economy, reduced overall spending seems possible too. That might suggest non-stock investments. So does that mean gold or, god forbid, crypto makes sense? Since I never understood the real value of gold or especially crypto, I'm personally avoiding that for right now. Bottom line - I'm confused too but I am holding a pretty high cash percentage in my portfolio at the moment...not as high as Buffet but up there for me.
Thanks and this is what's worrying me. I could sell, but would take a hit for what I bought before interest rates went up. Given a tiny portfolio, I'm fully invested. Mostly bonds though no treasuries. It has worked since it was decent income and I didn't care about price fluctuations as long as not selling. But now? Cashing out into cash in US dollars is not making a lot of sense to me either. I will lose money on some bonds, but mostly I fear the collapse of the dollar completely if these hints around the edges I've heard - those throw away comments both Trump and Musk like to make - about not having to pay some of the debt and declaring it illegitimate come to fruition. My only hope is that there are some big money players who will walk into the room and stop Trump at that point, since lots of bigger money, including banking, will crumble if Trump blows off bond payments. But if I did jump, the next question is which currency? What a mess.
Chal
I submit that there is a Minsky cycle in all things. Sadly, vaccination comes to mind.
Actually this makes a lot of sense. At 70 I remember the people whose lives were ravaged by Polio. I knew a kid in my kindergarten class who died of post-measles pneumonia. My grandmother had Smallpox when she was 17 - she was one of the lucky ones - half of the town died. I worked a summer in an Easter Seals camp in 1969. I saw the kids whose mothers caught Rubella in the first trimester. I personally almost died of Mumps encephalitis. But most people around today have never seen these things. So, they don’t understand the risks of not vaccinating. They have only to look at the outbreak going on now in Texas.
The anti-measles movement began in the UK after the Lancet published the research data of Doctor Andrew Wakefield. That data supposedly showed that the measles vaccine caused autism. In spite of the fact that Wakefield was proven to have faked his data and his medical license had been revoked, the US media gave a platform to parents who had been conned by his scam. I saw multiple interviews with Jenny McCarthy and other parents convinced their children’s autism was caused by the vaccine but those shows did not present the facts about Wakefield’s con. Nor did I ever see an interview with someone who is still living with damage caused by measles — blindness, for example — or who lost loved ones to that dangerous, highly infectious disease. Those shows did have doctors who recited dry statistical analyses but it is stories of the effects on real people, not stats, that can get through to people. Just as the story about your grandmother made the dangers of smallpox real for you.
I had a similar experience. When I was a kid my cousin and I were shocked when we saw the page in my grandfather’s family bible listing births and deaths. His six youngest siblings had all died over a few months span. My aunt explained they had died in a diphtheria epidemic. She also emphasized that the “D” in the DPT vaccine we hated getting stands for diptheria and that vaccine ensured we would never suffer from that horrific disease — a disease that most people today know nothing about.
Few seem to realize that the revocation of a professional license and the retraction of published research are the most devastating revelations of dishonor and incompetence that can befall a professional, a scientist, or a reseacher.
except that he came over here and makes great speaking fees on the antivax circuit...
Andrew Wakefield is one of the biggest disinformation ‘successes’ ever. He deserves an especially hot spot in Hell… if it exists.
Your comment about diphtheria reminds of the story about the Alaskan sled dog Balto who led a team of huskies that carried the anti-toxin that saved dozens of children.
I mentioned elsewhere on Substack today that my first job was assistant counsellor in an Easter Seals Camp in 1969. We had lots of kids with severe Autism - but none of them were labeled as that.
My brother had polio .Had braces then operated on and metal rods put in his lower legs. The rest of my siblings and I got the polio vaccine .
You are right to remind people that we have had so many diseases eradicated and to want measles , mumps, rubella back is unconscionable….
I agree. I remember well the fear of polio that we all felt before Salk’s vaccine was available. My husband’s aunt, the mother of three young children, contracted polio a year or so before that vaccine became widely available. She spent the rest of her life — more than twenty years — as a quadriplegic, lying in a hospital bed in the family’s dining room. The media should be telling people stories like this every time they cover the anti-vaxxers. They should also tell people that Salk refused to patent his vaccine, choosing the greater good over personal wealth, a novel concept to people in this era of bowing down to billionaire tech bros who only care about us little people as customers, not humans.
Hell, even after seeing the ravages of covid right before their eyes, they still don't seem to grasp the risks of not vaccinating.
To say it is a cult is true . They idolize the leader of the cult and blindly follow.. The cult leader has his many groups that threaten senators and congress and they admit they were threatened so the follow him… it is only when we get people off their couches to register and vote out republicans that we will have any chance to stop the fallout……
It really is amazing. A lot of the people who voted for Trump are very much in the "well if it doesn't impact me, why should I care?" camp. But when it comes to COVID, I know numerous who were really ill or lost family members and they still don't seem to care.
It's downright astounding. MAGA is as MAGA does.
Well said. And I'm just now realizing what your name says. I love it.
The name says it all. What's in a name? Truth.
"Who are we at war with today?"
They think because they wear their MAGA paraphernalia they are doing something. There is a lot of delusional thinking going on.
Delusion only - no thinking going on at all.
Rubella is one you don't hear about often anymore. As an adult it isn't particularly bad, it was called the three day measles. Then they linked it to birth defects. I think it was in the news in the 70s or 80s. It was one of the reasons they wanted people to get the mmr vaccine even if they were like me and had measles.
I took MMR as a medical student because I knew I had Obstetrics rotations coming up and didn’t want to accidentally transmit anything to a prpegnant woman. It was no big deal - even though I had had all three as a kid.
The Rubella epidemics in Europe and the US in the early 1960s resulted in the first vaccine in 1969. News media covered it in the 1970s-1980s as a kind of PSA back when they felt some social responsibility. Now it’s solely about ratings, likes and advertising dollars.
When I was about 5, I met an older person who survived polio, but walked very gingerly with crutches because of it. He told me about polio, and about how his best friend survive measles but was deaf afterwards, and lost his mother and 3 of his 5 siblings.
Years ago, a friend was buying into the nonsense about HPV vax making kids "promiscuous." Until her sister got HPV-related cervical cancer. Her 12 year old daughter got the vax and was never the wiser.
I got all my kids the HPV vax when they were in their teens and pre-teens. At 26, Oldest asked to be taken for an HPV test, bc they thought they had contracted it. I said, "Of course, but it's unlikely." Why? Oldest was vaccinated, and didn't even realize they were. Test was negative.
It's pretty similar too to the talking point that hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, who make hard times.
Agreed. You cited vaccination. I’d add fascism and authoritarianism in general. We’ve had 80 years of relative freedom from authoritarian governments in the West. People have lost the memory of what living under those regimes means. I’m 75. My parents and many in my family fought the Nazis. So I have a direct link to that era. However, many people alive now don’t. They take for granted that things could never get as bad as they did under the Nazis. Just as too many unfortunately found out in the 1930s and 1940s, a very rude awakening could be on the immediate horizon.
It's true! The people making vaccine decisions today are mostly Millennials -- who have never experienced a routine outbreak of a communicable disease like measles.
You mean >yet<. They will soon enough - and nobody to blame but themselves.
Out where I used to live, they currently are.
This is true. Gen Xers experienced routine outbreaks of Chicken Pox every year at school.
But Even Millennials did that. My kids all got chicken pox despite getting vaccinated. Their school closed for a week bc so many children had it.
We're in a "tRumpsky cycle" right now re: cryptocurrencies, as King Donald has taken major positions in the crypto world, from promoting shamelessly his "memecoin" (then doing a soft rug-pull to cause his gullible supporters to lose collectively millions of dollars) to actively seeking a government-sponsored "cryptocurrency stockpile", which in fact ascribes "the full faith and credit" of the US government in backstopping the notional "value" of cryptocurrency.
Grift and graft on steroids...make that on Ketamine.
I thought exactly the same when I read this!
So what should we do with our savings in anticipation of banks failing?
This is my question exactly. How do we safeguard assets as much as possible?
A piggy bank?
I've started to check into banks outside the USA. No encouragement so far.
What banks are in US and Canada
What do you mean? They aren't interested in US currency?
No way to keep DonnyJon's grubby paws off the money. No safer in that regard than US banks are.
As I understand it, during the Great Depression, people kept cash under their mattresses.
My grandpa, born 1921, kept cash in the underside of his mattress until he died in 2015. Not much -- merely a financial cushion, no pun intended -- but that Depression habit was real and it stuck with him his entire life.
My grandfather, born in the late 1800s, bought all sorts of gold "commemorative" coins. He was sure the economy would collapse any time. One of my uncles said he had visions of this seventy-year-old man driving through the debris trying to buy things with gold coins. The first person he met would've taken it all away from him.
But prices kept going down in the depression. Keeping your cash available made sense.
Deflation. That might happen yet. Hang onto your hats.
Move them to Canada where we have strong regulation of a secure banking system, not casinos run by oligarchs!
What Canadian bank operates in US?
TD. Few Americans know that the initials stand for Toronto Dominion. But recent events are actually pushing TD to get out of it's US operations and sell them.!
Do you know why?
Rappers had it right: keep a stash under the mattress before things get bad sis.
Fire proof safe stuffed with cash?
Libertarians only invoke Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and believe it advocated laissez-faire economic policies because they haven't read it.
Yeah. You really need to understand "A theory of moral sentiments" to contextualise it
Quite so. Smith's French was wretched and the phrase originated with the French Physiocrats. Smith warned that businesses were just as capable as distorting the free market as government thus had to be regulated. He also warned against companies where the managers are not the owners. To follow Smith truly is to go down a path usually identified with the radical left.
One only has to look at the history of the British East India Company, its corruption of the British parliament and its horrific misrule of Bengal and other parts of India, all of which were a target of Smith's criticism in The Wealth of Nations.
Musk strikes me as a bit of a Robert Clive wannabe.
Not so radical. He was >right< about businesses.
Ah, so many dorm room arguments that ended with, “Read Smith, then tell me what you believe.”
Maybe. But they still have Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand.
Read Friedman or Stigler expounding on Adam Smith and you understand why members of the Nobel family didn't want to be associated with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize.
If all independent institutions are becoming Trump and Musk toy, why whould any foreign investor go in the US? After all it means that you're one twitter post away from losing your money.
I'm curious to know the current mood of professionals on this one, maybe i'm overreacting.
If China pulls its investments, it'll hurt us economically, but would at least be good for national security.
One dynamic I wish you wpuld further explore is the mutual gravitational pull between Trumpism and the Silicon Valley libertarianism of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Having just read The Contrarian by Chafkin about Thiel, one sees a 40 year old man naming companies after magic stones and swords in Tolkien, or the respective cities of Superman and Batman. The book is named The Contrarian.
There is a swashbuckling immaturity and arrested development to a culture that is highly self-absorbed and entitled that rejects all "isms" but rebellion and libertarianism. As the Sherlock character used to loudly proclaim "I am a high-functioning sociopath".
Indeed someone would benefit us all by nailing down the Musk-Trump dance. It's very possible Musk is not full MAGA as much as purely opportunistic. To a dedicated libertarian, government is a compromise too far. This smacks of opportunity greased by a $277M ticket to get into Trumpworld. It almost seems that whatever the unholy pact is the dynamic Musk brings may not be to please Trump as much as taking advantage of America's (and Putin's) favorite useful idiot.
Ah but Trump too is a sociopath of swashbuckling immaturity and arrested development and self-absorbed entitlement - so they're on the same page.
Trump is mentally ill. He suffers from malignant narcissistic disorder. As a result we all do.
I suspect the 25th amendment will eventually need to be applied.
Be careful what you wish for. Repeat after me: "President Vance". Oops.
How about "President Johnson". Nope, that doesn't work either.
Winston...I know. The prospects are terrifying.
I think musk bought trump to get out of all the investigations. Stealing the wealth of working Americans just happens to be a side benefit.
I read that the defense department has been ordered to spend $450 million on electric armored cars. The Tesla truck seems to be the only available platform. So, the muskrat just made $200 million off his investment in DonnyJon.
Thiel somehow thinks that Sauron and Saruman were the heroes of LOTR and ended up in a good place.
His minions would describe the government as Morder.
Might as well walk around with Mickey Mouse ears too.
That's because he identifies with them.
And revenge on America and grievance over the end of Apartheid in his homeland!
As I noted in a comment in January, international law enforcement officials estimate that AT LEAST 50% of all crypto transactions are used for money laundering, i.e. the laundering of financial crime--bribery, extortion, fraud, illicit goods (drugs), tax evasion, etc. For those with illicit proceeds, it is much easier to buy and sell a crypto asset than put buckets of $20 bills on a barge and/or smurf the illicit proceeds through ATMS at $100 a transaction.
Second, Trump, at his core, is a salesman. Note for example the press conferences at 2 weeks by Leavitt and 1 month by Miller touting the administrations "achievements". They are selling achievements that didn't happen.
But Trump is also a very vindictive salesman. If you don't buy what he is selling, he seeks revenge. That is what is happening with NYC. That is what happened with congestion priceing. Self-proclaimed King (of NYC) Trump cancelled congestion pricing (and let Eric Adams off) because most of NYC isn't buying what Trump is selling and he is mad about that. He had to leave town. (Anyone that ever dealt with him in NYC knows he is a con man--even back in the 1980s my bank wouldn't lend money to him. It was a character issue.
So stopping congestion pricing was just more Trump retribution.
Last, Professor Krugman is right. The most probable scenario is that all this bad policy and retribution ends in calamity. And it will be a large enough calamity for the unengaged to sit up and take notice. No matter how you tease out the future (unless you believe Trump will have an Ebenezer Scrooge moment...NOT!), this bad policy, incompetence, and retribution ends in not just one calamity, but in many calamities. Several and maybe simultaneous calamities: a financial calamity, a health calamity, a social calamity, and who know what other kind.
Unfortunately, calamities don't pick and choose their victims. As I know from up a close and personal experience of the 2008 financial crisis, even the best can get washed away.
I agree with everything you wrote except one: Trump is >not< a salesman - he's a huckster. There is a distinction.
I'm not sure if there is a distinction. I think, at heart, all salesmen are hucksters.
You have a point there. To some extent that's true. But there is spectrum.
If crypto ends up taking over the money laundering world it's going to cause a crash in Miami real estate sales, probably London and Manhattan also. On a different topic, when Trump's financial collapse hits, he'll blame Biden and illegal immigrants, and his MAGA lemmings will believe him.
Congestion pricing has made a tremendous and pleasant difference in life on both sides of the river. The towns around the George Washington Bridge are far easier to navigate during the daytime hours because the drop in traffic is astonishing.
I don’t live there but it seems a reasonable solution to at least try. I don’t understand how what is totally a local matter becomes something the president wants to control.
He wants to piss off New York City
As I understand it, the proceeds are/were to be used to keep subway and bus fares down. Thus, interfering with it hurts the poor the most. The Orangutan King >loves< hurting the poor.
Sort of. The money is supposed to be used to pay for long-overdue improvements to the system. The State has been stalling on making these improvements for decades.
And they will continue stalling, as they always have.
Some of his Wall St. donors complained? It is all well and good to spend a few million to get friendly politicians in office, a $15 commute charge is something that they can't tolerate. Where is the payback for them? That is the only thing I can figure.
Trump is very enthusiastic about burning gas (petrol we call it). He will sabotage the subway if you don't start getting in your cars and burning gas. That's what you're for.
My commute is from Long Island to Brooklyn and it is noticeably better.
On a recent weekday I drove to Bushwick from Philly to visit a family member. I went through the Holland Tunnel and across Canal Street to the bridge and the streets were almost empty.
IMO, Trump's chaos around tariffs is already causing a pullback in capital spending that could easily trigger the next recession.
As just one example, Ford is delaying the refresh of its F-150 and uncertainty around tariffs is being credited as a major part of the reason:
"The automotive industry will be turned upside down over the next few years as nearly all automakers are delaying or changing their product plans amid policy uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration and lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles, a source said."
“The chaos and uncertainty plaguing the North American auto industry, which is under the constant threat of tariffs and a dismantling of (electric vehicle) regulations from the United States, are having real-time impacts on workers and corporate decisions," Unifor National President Lana Payne said in a statement. "We have been saying this as a union from day one that the threats are also dangerous to our economy and to Canadian jobs.”
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2025/02/20/f-150-delay-tip-of-the-iceberg-detroit-3-change-product-plans/79194933007
The beginning of the end of our financial system came when banks started selling “products” (instead of providing “services”. That language never made sense. It still sounds crass. Elite MBA mills simply reinvented new ways to fleece old sheep, in order to justify outrageous tuitions.
While we're distracted by a renamed Gulf of Mexico, we're making less fuss over the reopening of LNG extraction (for export mostly) along the already eroded southern Louisiana coastline. USA first exported LNG in 2016. By 2023 it was the world’s top exporter, surpassing Qatar, reordering world markets in Europe and Asia. ***Exports drove up domestic energy prices & created $1B in health costs. 2/14/25 Trump green-lit the LNG exports that Biden paused over climate concerns. (Thanks to "Grist" for educating us on all things energy) LNG Venture Global's last project transformed the lives of 23,000 who live in Plaquemines parish. Streets choked with truck traffic, marsh overrun with pipelines, air filled with pollution from flares & leaks. Acres of wetland disappeared beneath concrete. Gulf of Gas
Gulf of Gas -- the space between Trump's lips.
Don't worry. Trump will force Europe to go back to buying gas from his Russian mentor.
Hmmmm, I detect a pattern here....
As I'm not an economist and have a very modest portfolio of investments, my mind went south when reading this, south to a thought or two about Melania, who might or might not merit my antipathy. She's grifted right along with her husband, which was innocuous enough when she was just selling face cream , but now she's into crypto. A couple of years ago I found myself explaining why he should stop investing in it to a dear young friend who'd been sucked in by right leaning influencers. It's a scam, I insisted, Like Melania--fake, expensive, ultimately for sale to those foolish enough to bite the lure. What does that say about the man who actually married her?
That's why they're married. They're two of a kind. Their relationship - like all of their relationships - is transactional. What it says about him is also what it says about her.
It's no coincidence that they both unleashed their crypto currencies - $KingMAGAcoin and $QueenMAGAcoin - simultaneously.
I’m sure she collects a substantial fee every time she accompanies him anywhere or sits on an adjacent couch. If she prays every night, it is probably for his demise.
She received 40 million from Amazon for a documentary that about may garner 400,000 views (most exiting out before the finish)
She charges $250,000 an appearance, according to CNN, and the log cabin republicans. And the CNN one was to promote her book!
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
They have a very strict prenuptial agreement. If she leaves him, she becomes another elderly model. She's stuck with him 'til he dies.
Not so strict, as it is now a post-nup and has been renegotiated four times, now.
This link was before the 2024 election when she renegotiated again.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/melania-trump-donald-trump-prenup
The S&L collapse and the 2008 collapse were big warning flags and our response was not sufficient. Today I think we are seeing the endgame of the Reagan policy of "starve the beast." I learned in 4th grade that capitalism is a great system but laissez faire capitalism cannot be allowed. With no government regulation someday we will have four or five corporations left and they will be the real government. The regulation by the federal government is there to protect all the people from the excesses of corporations. Reagan sold the American citizenry on the idea that government regulations were aimed at them, not at protecting them. "Starve the beast" is aimed at pulling the teeth of the ability of the federal government to work.
For many years I have been deeply worried for the US democracy, seeing almost nobody aware of fascism knocking on its door. I always found great solace in reading Paul Krugman, who has been warning us coherently, eloquently and tirelessly that the GOP is turning, slowly but surely, into a fascist movement. What fascists do, first and foremost, is to destroy what works since they cannot live in harmony with their environment and their fellow human beings - almost a definition of a their movement.
So I am surprised and worried to read here: 'Sometimes — actually, quite often — it seems as if the Musk/Trump administration tries to undermine successful government policies precisely because they’ve been successful.' This is for people who do not know anything about fascism and/or history, it should not be for this platform where we must go beyond behaving as if the present administration represents anything sane and/or is a part of a democratic process.
We talk of a movement gone crazy and bent on destroying everything, but everything, that democracy represents. This is already fascism, albeit in its beginning stage. And precisely due to Krugman's writing over the years, we even know quite well how and why it happened. It was important then to keep analysing what was going on, in order to prevent them winning. But now, with the insurrectionist-in-chief pardoning the criminals that he incited, and speaking openly of the elimination/deportation of Palestinians - more a nazi than a fascist move - and everything else that directly threatens the core of democracy and the rule of law, it is high time, I believe from the bottom of my heart, to affront the fascism. It is here, staring at us and asking us to act.
I got a peek of it in 1974, Santiago, Chile. You are not alone in your concern about fascism’s rise (again) in the US.
European Citizen. We have rules that prevent banks from selling citizens without certain knowledge risky financial products, MIFIR.
You can invest in the EU or you can invest where being a snake oil salesman is not illegal.
Canadian banks and Canadain real estate passed through the great recession unscathed due to the high degree of regulation and the notoriusly conservative management. These regulations were the very things that DJT recently railed about recently when arguing Canadians are "unfair" to US banks preventing them to do business there (which is a lie, most of the leading global banks have presence here.) - Canadian banks are a stumbling block to his plan to invade Canada.
Actually, most US banks were unscathed as well. It was European banks and US shadow banks who were most seriously scathed.
https://charles72f.substack.com/p/basel-faulty-the-financial-crisis
For most of us our investments are tied up in retirement accounts. We've never had enough extra money to have pure investment funds, but we do have a decent SEP IRA. Is it possible to get our retirement money out of the US without a huge penalty?
I also just listened to SCAM INC on the Economist which highlighted the local mid-west bank that got hit with pig butchering. Think about how much the global scammers, who rival global drug traffickers, would pay for the IRS/SOCIAL SECURITY information and we have gangs of Muskovites without real security clearances rifling unfettered through everything.
No, it isn't. If you put the money in before taxes, you must pay taxes on it as you take it out. That puts you in the Alternate Minimum Tax bracket in a big hurry. I think the best you can do is to shift funds from investments in US entities to investments overseas. I've done some of that myself. There's still the saying that, when the US sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold.
We used to be like that. Then our politicians took a wrong turn, and summarily stuck it to us.