What depresses me is that at the least sign of trouble, the billionaires will decamp on their private jets or fleets of yachts. The people who end up at the points of the pitchforks are going to be middle-class types with big mortgages on their minimansions and a leased BMW in the driveway.
Yeah, like I said earlier, fascists are always surrounded by crackpots with nutty theories and this is one of them.
Good point. Possession of an ocean-going yacht would keep a lot of the super-rich from facing angry (and hungry) mobs.
The US economy is large and ponderous and even Donald Trump can’t get us to the pitchfork stage in mere months.
Years, though, might be another matter…
They wouldn’t liquidate, they would borrow. So it isn’t even $6 trillion in cash, it is the margin power of $6 trillion, so $15 trillion, or however it works. Does it still work that on margin you can buy double the value of your holdings, and then 50% of the value of the new holdings? Am I remembering right? It’s been 25 years since I bought anything on margin.
I think that is one thing people forget. Trump just says whatever feels good at the time, or that he thinks his audience will like. When it’s something about tariffs that he believes in, it comes up again. When it was something he turns out not to want, he doesn’t walk it back, or try and explain nuance, he just denies having said it.
The saying of lots of things I think is a deliberate action, not just lack of discipline. It is the Putin model of blasting out so many lies and truths that no one can keep it all straight, people end up not knowing what to believe, and it creates huge amounts of distrust, which benefits the authoritarians.
Superyachts burn fuel like crazy; most of them are basically only capable of going from one port to another a few thousand miles before refueling. Some of them aren’t even suitable for true ‘blue water’ transit and are really only suitable for coastal cruising. No billionaire is certainly going to want to spend months or years out to sea regardless of how well appointed a boat they might own.
Stranger
Somali pirates and Ukrainian sea drones might dispute this assertion.
I’ve always suspected a lot of those super yachts are secretly armed with automatic cannons. One of those 25mm weapons they have on Bradleys would do the trick against any pirate. Billionaires aren’t subject to gun laws like normal people.
Trade is one of the few ideologies Trump has. He really believes the US would be better off not involved in free trade and running account balance deficits. He’s attacked US trade since the 1980s.
Now, is he also grifting? Signs point to yes.
Does he have the competence around him to implement a coherent trade policy? Probably not.
But they are subject to physics. How many rounds would they have? How much cargo space for personal luxuries will they trade for ammunition?
Have you seen a superyacht? A little gun that fits on an armored personnel carrier would barely be noticed.
I’m pretty sure Jeff Bezos is a Bond fan and had something like this constructed.
Stranger
Per Trump, it’s to have more American made products ( “We’re going to bring the companies back. We’re going to lower taxes for companies that are going to make their products in the USA. And we’re going to protect those companies with strong tariffs.”)
and
to not have Fentanyl being made in China and then coming over the border from Mexico and Canada (“China makes the fentanyl, gives it to Mexico, puts it through Canada, puts it through different places, mostly Mexico, but also a lot through Canada…").
There may be other reasons but those two are the most repeated.
Maybe re: knowing it will cause those things. He did acknowledge that there may be “some pain” felt due to the tariffs and that it “will all be worth the price that must be paid.” So acknowledging something, but not the full extent of what’s reasonably possible.
I think that answers your question without any opinion from me.
My Opinion…
Personally, I think tariffs are just a tool he effectively has complete control over and can implement when, where, and on what. But as someone mentioned, there is some “trade” ideology. Trump could also, say, wield the military unfettered, but foreign war is not his thing. Tariffs would directly cause more American made products (it did with steel in his first term) and I’d guess you’d use the threat of tariffs/removing them to negotiate for border security on the Mexico/Canada side to do something about fentanyl.
I don’t really follow politics like I used to, but this is following the same Trump template. Wild and chaotic announcement of using tariffs, that will lead to “Liberation Day” that will free the US from foreign control, quietly not actually implementing or keeping the wild and chaotic stuff, and claiming total victory. A huge win a few months into his Presidency. Yay!!
All BS and I can’t sarcasm " " everything I just wrote but you should read that into it. That’s how it looks to me from the outside. It will be bumpy, but I don’t think catastrophic. Of course, you fuck around the brink too much for too long, and it’s no longer in your control.
Lastly, I don’t think all the current economic chaos is just related to tariffs. Even with say Harris, I would expect or be unsurprised with markets coming down for a year or so. They’ve been propped up with 0/low fed rates for a long time and also getting free money as recent as 2020’ish. We are still experiencing the ripples of relatively recent rising/higher rates and tightening of the feds wallet. My worthless opinion at least.
That yacht seems almost quaint. The superyachts these billionaires build now dwarf that thing. There are superyachts now the size of missile destroyers.
But can they turn into a hydrofoil and ineffectually attempt to zip away from a major navy, leaving the ‘cocoon’ of hapless flunkies to ping away at a destroyer with anti-aircraft guns? Actually, I’m surprised we don’t see more billionaires investing in submersible yachts and secret undersea lairs. I guess not enough of them watched Johnny Quest and seaQuest DSV in their youth.
Stranger
A recent event may have put billionaires off of submersibles.
Of course we don’t see it, they’re secret undersea lairs.
Though given the quality of billionaires we have today, they’d build a secret lair, then brag about it on Joe Rogan.
A bit more serious: The only billionaires I personally know keep it secret by just not being too ostentatious about it. They have the biggest house in a neighborhood of lots of big houses, but it is not nearly the gaudiest. They are also probably worth 50-100 times their mere millionaire neighbors, That is until you get to the secret underground garage with the US street legal Porsche 959 and 918, and Arlen Ness chopper.
For the DOGE part, I see it as this:
- Reduce government spending by shaving off bits here and there
- Come up with a big number of dollars saved, to publish for praise
- Divvy those savings up into a stimulus check for every American
- Every American then goes and spends their check on goods and services that continue to be over-priced
- Profit to every business
There is no #6 “every working American prospers because American businesses prosper” because we know that that is not a thing. The money stops at the rich business owners and investors.
Americans are absolutely no better off at this point, and in fact we’re worse off because of all the services cut by DOGE. But the masses have this “feeling” of something good having happened, because we got checks from the government. Trump and Musk feel important and victorious, business owners and investors feel happy with their windfall, and everyone else takes another breath of the ether and goes back to sleep.
My take on Trump over the last 8 years based on his behavior is that he is addicted to power and the attention it brings him. NOTHING is more important to him.
Though I can’t be sure quite what, it sure feels to me like this has to play some part in it:
Huh. Quite the burn rate, so far, in Trump 2.0.
ETA: (at least partial) explanations given in the article:
Follow the money.
The lesson there should be to not trust a complete imbecile to build a deep submergence vehicle out of unsuitable materials. Get James Cameron and Ron Allum to build your secret lair and fleet of submersible warcraft. Or, go pick one up on the cheap out at Morro Bay:
(fully sea-tested, lightly used, buyer to provide their own docking collar and tender ship)
Stranger