I stumbled across this collection of eaten faces, and thought some others might enjoy it.
According to my brother, who has been in the Financial Services his entire working life, the whole financial sector (the stock market operators, big mutual funds, hedge funds, bond traders, all the “big” money players) is having buyers remorse because they now see that Trump is going to “democratize finance” which is a threat to these powers who have been screwing is for generations. They are trying to crash the markets, conspiring with foreign powers, to undermine Trump’s popularity. But it’s not working.
He’s done a complete 180 on crypto in the last three months. Now it’s not “a bigger scam than fiat money” but the “only store of value that can’t be controlled”
It must suck to be one of his clients.
A few days ago I saw a clip of Jeanine Pirro saying “Ya know what, I don’t really care about my 401k today” and all I could think is how insulting that is, or at least should be, to the majority of citizens who DO care about their 401k today. Think about how many people, how many Trump voters, that had every intention of retiring in the next few years and are realizing they might not be able to anymore.
Who knows, maybe some of them will decide to be ‘selfish’ come next election and vote democrat hoping to keep the market in a better place long enough for their portfolios to rebound and allow them to retire.
He sounds like a great mark for someone running a Ponzi scheme offering to protect money from the US economy by investing it in some overseas market with an absurdly high ROI and no risk.
He’s really a fantastic example of the ability of people to hold completely contradictory beliefs.
Me makes fun of his clients because they consume an endless stream of bullshit he feeds them. He says there’s no way to make real money in the business without being thoroughly dishonest. But then he says his clients trust him because he genuinely cares about them (he has an encyclopedic knowledge of their personal lives, children, pets, hobbies, at least the high net worth ones). He really sees no dissonance.
He will go along with racist opinions and “jokes” from his clients, even about Asians, and is absolutely confident that they don’t mean to include HIM in the stereotypes and caricatures they are mocking and disparaging.
It just blows my mind.
TLDR version for MAGA voters; Elon Musk and Donald Trump say you’re not paying enough taxes.
Sounds to me like a case of “thinks HE is IN on the scam”.
The funny/sad part is, if Trump sends out dividend checks to, lets say, only people making over 500k/yr, that should piss off his base. They can watch, with their own eyes, Trump handing out free money to rich people and not them, the ones that actually need it in order to keep their house or car or whatever. But all Trump has to do is say something along the lines of “I know this seems unfair, I know you poor people were really hoping for some of this money, but due to some of the corrupt laws put in place by crooked Joe Biden, this is the only way we can do it. Folks, I’m doing everything I can to get rid of Bidenomics, but right now we’re stuck with it”
Or, IOW, blame Biden in some vague way. The right will eat it up and think they’ll get some of the money next time, the left will spend a week trying to figure out WTF he was talking about, knowing full well he just made it up and the people at the top will ignore the entire conversation and cash their checks.
As soon as it blows over, he’ll move on to the next thing.
The only thing more dangerous than a toddler tyrant is a teflon toddler tyrant.
Sad but true.
And it ignores a lot of reality. Like how these things that are supposedly Biden’s fault never happened when Biden was President but only started after Trump became President. Or how Trump, the self-proclaimed genius, is being outmaneuvered by a former President. Or how Trump has been unable to accomplish things three months into his Presidency that he claimed he would be able to do on Day One.
Last I heard, the checks will go out (allegedly) to people who paid taxes. If you got a refund, then you’re out of luck. Someone needs to straighten me out on that. Anyway, I always have to pay $1,200 or $1,300 or so. (Never mind. It’s complicated.) It would be nice if I got one of these nebulous stimulus checks.
Unless your refund was 100% of your withholding and estimated payments if any, you paid taxes.
Whether you have to pay in on Apr 15, like me, or you get a refund on Apr 15, like you, that’s just a true-up between what you’ve already paid in versus what you actually owe.
At least under any non-insane definition of “paid taxes”. Given that we’re talking about a trump-era idea, damn near anything could be true in this brave new “through the looking glass” world.
Including that I might have been thoroughly whooshed.
I just finished another season of volunteer tax preparation. (Thank Og!)
We have a fair number of clients who are in this position: they receive tax credits for their kids, or have an Earned Income Credit. As a result, they receive a substantial ‘refund’, which isn’t a refund at all, as the refund is larger than the amount of taxes that have been levied on their incomes.
So these folks obviously are already getting far more than they deserve, and they won’t get any more! /s
Nah. He doesn’t have to say anything. The MAGA faithful will cheer as he writes checks to the ultra-wealthy. When pressed to explain themselves, the MAGAts will say something like “Hey, the rich make this country what it is. If we didn’t have them, we’d be just another garbage country. We owe them everything: a $10k check doesn’t nearly cover it. Plus, they’re gonna use that money to create more jobs for hardworking Americans like me. I’ve always said the only thing better than working a full-time job just to scrape by is working two full-time jobs just to scrape by.”
A double-secret recession.
How much would a US-made iPhone cost? $3,500 to $100,000 Forbes says – stressing that’s not a typo.
Brings tears to strong men’s eyes, it does, Calvinball Economics.
But Lutnick promised!
To the tune of “America” by Neil Diamond:
Car
Can’t afford a new car
I could sell my home
Live in a vacant bar
Free
Fucking’ trade was just free
We’re losing hope
Hurts too much to dream
All the boats and all the planes
Aren’t heading for America
Never see Costco again
She’s dying, my America
Home, grieving my 401k
Oh, we’re nearly broke today
Why was Trump ever born?
Why was Trump ever born?
Here’s to a future I can’t face
Stay in bed and huff some Mace
Why was Trump ever born?
Why was Trump ever born?
Everywhere around the world
They’re saying “Fuck America”
Every boy and every girl
They’re saying “Fuck America”
[Ahhh. Like hugging a puppy, no?]
I’m saying Fuck America…Today!
I mean “you have to be dishonest to succeed” on the one hand, but Trump is democratizing finance to prevent companies from being dishonest to us on the other. That should be causing a truly spectacular case of cognitive dissonance.