We have yet another idiotic rationalization to take Greenland. This idiocy is courtesy of the Treasury Secretary.
Please note ‘The national emergency is avoiding the national emergency.’
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended proposed tariffs targeting eight European countries that oppose President Donald Trump’s push to acquire Greenland, telling NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the goal is to avoid a future national emergency.
Asked by moderator Kristen Welker what national emergency justifies tariffs against countries that oppose Trump’s Greenland ambitions, Bessent argued that “the national emergency is avoiding a national emergency.”
“It is a strategic decision by the president,” he said. “This is a geopolitical decision, and he is able to use the economic might of the U.S. to avoid a hot war.”
In the statement, he emphasized commitments to “solidarity” with Denmark and Greenland and a “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion.”
Faustian Bargain
Paul Krugman accurately commented on Faustian Bargains with Trump.
Who knows what Trump has on Bessent, but it’s clear that Bessent made a Faustian bargain, selling his soul in return for … something. And the terms of the bargain clearly require that he humiliate himself in public on a regular basis. He no longer acts like a respectable Wall Street insider; now he behaves like a capo helping his mob boss run a protection racket.”
The degradation of Scott Bessent serves as an illustration of where anyone who thinks they can manage Trump will end up. Corporate America needs to realize that they too must make Faustian bargains if they want to stay on Trump’s good side – and that the price of those bargains will be very high. Campaign contributions won’t be enough: they must pour money into Trump’s ballroom, and/or his family’s pocket, and/or his crazy adventures in places like Venezuela or Gaza. Refraining from criticism of Trump’s policies won’t be enough. Instead they must become sycophants, enthusiastically supporting Trump’s policies — especially if those policies are deeply stupid. If they don’t go along the punishment will be personal as well as financial.
Thus Trump lashed out at Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, for blurting out the obvious truth that Venezuelan oil is “uninvestable.” Then Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, mildly suggested that undermining the Federal Reserve’s independence might be a bad idea. Dimon didn’t even mention the truly disturbing part of the story, the announcement that the Department of Justice had begun an obviously groundless criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, whose only crime was not taking Trump’s orders on interest rate policy. Sure enough, Trump not only lashed out at Dimon but threatened to sue JPMorgan for allegedly “debanking” him after Jan. 6. This comes from a president who has pardoned criminals convicted (sometimes multiple times) for defrauding consumers of billions of dollars.
The lesson for businesspeople is that Faustian bargains never end well. Take a lesson from watching Scott Bessent – appease Trump and he will demand that you debase yourself even further. It’s been astonishing how quickly corporate greed has been replaced by corporate fear: Businesses who hoped to profit from Trump now toe the line because they’re afraid of being punished.
So businesspeople have a choice: Continue to abase themselves, destroying their dignity and their reputations, in an attempt to curry favor with a wannabe dictator who’s falling short, or show some spine. And that stiffening of the spine must be a collective endeavour.
Solidarity with Denmark
I will not suggest this twisted logic on the need to start a war to avoid one is a stupid as it gets because it’s bound to get stupider.
As for “solidarity” with Denmark and Greenland and a “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion”, mercy!
Just look at these spineless, groveling puppets.
Related Posts
January 10, 2026: Trump Will Take Greenland the ‘Easy Way’ or the ‘Hard Way’ by Force
Trump wants Greenland. So he will take it.
January 14, 2026: White House Uses White Supremacist Nazi-Supportive Language to Threaten Greenland
Which Way,
WesternGreenland Man?
January 17, 2026: Trump Hits European Nations With Tariffs Until Deal Reached to Buy Greenland
If you need another reason IEEPA tariffs are idiocy, you have one.
January 19, 2026: Trump “No Longer Feels an Obligation to Think Purely of Peace”
Trump states the obvious.
“Mish is quoting Krugman? How far this blog has fallen”.
I was wondering who would be the first idiot incapable of thinking, and respond with an ad hominem attack on Krugman rather than make an argument against what he said.
Congratulations, You Win!
A trillion dollar platinum minted coin with Krugman’s face on it? Need about 38 more.
There are always people who are vehemently against drinking water:
“That’s exactly what Hitler did too!”
“The lesson for businesspeople is that Faustian bargains never end well.”
Racist DEI didn’t work out very well for them.
Paul Krugman is an elf with an elf’s brain. He goes off on this BS Faustian bargain BS. As Krugman helped debase the dollar by printing during the fraud of Covid shut down– as any Democrat don’t let a crisis go to waste mentality. Fraud and NGOS made the Democrats gang rich. Trump at least brings sanity to the White House as we are still suffering from this economic emergency produced by Democrats
You have sizable ones Mish. Keep growing them. But save yourself and give up hope on those lackeys you attempt to reach. Like Wall Street itself, they only change course after the fact. They are always late to catch on. There is not a fertilizer in the world strong enough to grow those gonads. Poor cuckold Bessent even looks AI driven now. A character of his old self. Lose the glasses Scott, your vaudeville act is outdated.
And the idiot does it with a straight face!
Its funny the party that does not believe in global warming is trying to take action to protect the country from the consequences of global warming.
Economically speaking, the gold and silver markets are screaming that Bessent, Trump and Rubio and their grifting sycophants have no credibility.
Astounding loss of confidence since these asswipes took office.
it’s about time amerikans have lost confidence in the leaders of their crumbling world wide warmongering empire. i’m just shocked it took this long. i figured it out in about 1970 at age ten. this is a great thing old frosty. think about it.
Great posts lately Mish. Thanks for calling them as you see them.
Here is what fiscal stimulus did for the last fiscal year.
2025 GDP $28.4 trillion
2025 GDP $27.8
difference $00.6 trillion
Deficit $ 1.8
For deficit spending of $1.8 trillion we got $600 billion in growth. Running a deficit is costing us in economic growth and increased debt servicing.
Cutting interest rates and increasing government spending is wrong headed, we need to cut spending below revenue. We can print our way out of this because debasing the currency debases the private sector tax base faster than the debt is debased or stated another way, tax revenues decrease faster than the deficit increases unless spending is cut below revenue. The longer congress waits, the more difficult to solve the problem.
GDP and deficit numbers from Copilot.
cannot print our way out of this
The oligarchs only care about land and resources – they do not care about people.
They prefer Greenland and Canada, to California and Minnesota, which are full of unruly Americans.
Better ask is what does Lauder have on Trump?
OUCH!
😉
I used to think, at one time, that bessent had some common sense. I guess if you hang around long enough with a deranged and self centered tyrant, one loses all sense of reality, as well as the ability to think clearly and sensibly.
This is rich beyond comprehension; the treasury secretary does not see with proper perspective that the country is drowning, approaching the point of death, in debt exacerbated every year with increasing deficits. Then he goes on television to advocate for every Trump proposal to spend more money and tariff our way to a balanced budget making the fiscal situation even worse. After WW1 and the Spanish flu pandemic, the US cut spending below revenue and the federal reserve did little, ushering the roaring twenties. Following the stock market crash of 1929, the government tried to borrow and spend our way to prosperity leading to 15 years of misery then entering WW2 essentially broke. In the 1960’s, the US had its guns (Viet Nam war) and butter (Great Society) programs we could not afford that lead to removing dollar convertibility to gold, For the same spending beyond what we can afford reason, gold is soaring now, the dollar has lost its ability to store value.
Trump lived through the latter portion of those events and is repeating them. Einstein summed it up perfectly, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is insane.
Great post. Harding does not get enough credit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFNqCZCDkXA. Peter Zeihan explains why Greenland is useless to US. Trump has gone mad.
He’s been mad for quite some time just most people refused to pay attention.
Zeihan makes excellent points in the video.
Bessent will learn soon, if he hasn’t already, that no public figure’s reputation ever survives close contact with Donald Trump.
Herschel Walker did ok.
If only he’d been able to speak English
JD Vance will learn that, too. He’s the one person in this administration Trump can’t fire. He should state his opposition to some of Trump’s policies, but he thinks that would prevent him from getting the nomination. He’s getting the Trump stank on him and he’s oblivious.
Vance took himself out of the running, about 2 weeks ago.
Talk about political suicide.
Corporate America is always ready to make Faustian bargains to remain in the graces, that is, in the money spigot of the Feds. What does anyone think was same sex marriage benefits during the Obama years and DEI policies during the Biden years? The US are a retail capitalist economy and a wholesale socialist economy. That is, privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.
The lawyers probably wanted that gay divorce money.
Yet another example of this idiot’s circular thinking.
Spend the time to listen to him on Sunday mornings.
Scott’s greatest (perhaps only) fan is Scott himself.
God help the Americans.
How he mocks the congressional shrews like Lieawatha is worth it.
It’s possible Bessent is inadvertently giving away the game. It’s an emergency to stop the pending emergency – but the real emergency isn’t that some evildoers will take over Greenland or that we need it for the Golden Dome. It’s that we’re inching close to a sovereign debt crisis, with interest rates going parabolic and the dollar plummeting at a faster rate, so we need to seize natural resources anywhere we can find them to allow another round of debt emission.
They just want to take Greenland because they can. That’s all. Possibly practice for grabbing parts of Canada.
Bessent’s only job is to try to make Trump’s ravings sound legit.
Ontario, Quebec and parts east are of no interest.
Au contraire, they have the boreal forest, and the hydroelectric dams.
The real emergency is that the Republicans are going to lose big in Nov. Which means trump will lose big shortly after.
Yes collateral is key, which is the reason the Eurotrash want Ukraine.
No. Does not compute.
Mineral wealth needs to be produced before it can become collateral.
Asset value is predicated on discounted expected cash flow.
Greenland is just a puerile obsession by Trump’s ego to attain greatness, and expand the USA areal for the first time since his hero, President McKinley, something related to the only book he read part of at school.
Remember the urgent strategic need to acquire Soviet built Bagram air base?
Mish is quoting Krugman? How far this blog has fallen.
Wikipedia has a list of the active ship in the Danish Navy. Look it up and ask whether that fleet could defend Greenland. Then look up the same list for the British Navy and ask if they could do it.
It’s sad how far the British navy fallen. It’s also clear that if that Danish colony does need defending it will be on the U.S and the rest of NATO will expect us to do it for free.
“Defending Greenland”
Listen to yourself, FFS
Denmark snut all its F16s to the Ukraine. They now want them back, or what’s left of them after they met Tovarishch Buk.
Defending against whom? If you say China I’m just going laugh my ass off at how stupid that claim is.
China may ship a BYD to every Greenlander, now that’s a threat.
Krugman should recognize a Faustian bargain when he sees one. He has made his own bargain to get the Nobel prize and keep the real power brokers from dropping whatever dirt they have on him. All he has to do is reliably serve as an apologist for whatever economic lunacy the Left wants to push.
“Mish is quoting Krugman? How far this blog has fallen”.
I was wondering who would be the first idiot incapable of thinking, and respond with an ad hominem attack on Krugman rather than make an argument against what he said.
Congratulations, You Win!
He’s not wrong. Krugman is a tool.
Very limited thinking.
How many Capital ships did the Vietcong need to win?
How many trained regiments and, again, Capital ships, did the American revolution involve?
How have the countless and endless wars with terrorist organizations gone?
They have all gone quite horribly and nobody needs a shit ton of military equipment to kick somebody’s ass.
If you are in my neighborhood, I already have many advantages over you. First, I know the neighborhood. Second, the people in the neighborhood know me. Third, I have far more incentive to defend my home than you do freezing your balls off for a rich mans profit.
You also forgot that, if this gets dirty, Canada will not be our Ally. We will have to figure out how to get around all that Canadian airspace. It’s not impossible, but it’s a logistical problem.
And if you really want to get dystopian, the other side also has nuclear weapons.
Ho gave credit as he studied Washington’s tactics.
A red winter coat, a sleigh and 8 flying reindeer over Canada.
Well, they did Sink The Bismarck.
“…Just look at these spineless, groveling puppets….”
This is an accurate portrayal of those surrounding Trump. This is why fascist regimes crumble under their own weight relatively quickly. The leader surrounds himself with sycophantic incompetent morons. It’s one giant echo chamber that is rigid and unable to adjust to the inevitable resistance it will face. Most good competent people run for the hills when asked to serve under such regimes, or, if they do stick around, they drag their feet and do a half assed job.
Sadly these types of regimes do alot of damage during their very short tenure at the top.
That wasn’t the case when Hitler gained power. Fear prevented a lot of good people from resisting, and many good people paid a terrible price for attempting to.
Even Hitler’s power wasn’t instantaneous and present from the beginning.
He slowly built out his position of being impossible to challenge.
Bessent is not a sycophant trying to curry favor or manage Trump like Mnuchin during Trump’s first term. He actively supports Trump and his mission of making America the undisputed top dog again.
snark attack?
Trump fluffer.
Mnuchin & Wife after visiting Ft Knox: “Gold Is Good”. No better insider tip than that.
Like one of those late-stage Roman emperors.
John Thain of Merrill Lynch had a gold-plated toilet named Commodus in his office when TSHTF, and was bailed out.
that asshole lived down my block in charleston SC.
every effn crisis for the US today is self-generated
The “sell America” trade is in full swing Tuesday morning after President Donald Trump and European leaders escalated tensions over Greenland.
U.S. bond prices tumbled, sending yields spiking. The U.S. Dollar Index, which weighs the greenback against a basket of six foreign currencies, fell nearly 1% on Tuesday. The euro jumped 0.7% against the dollar.
“This is ‘sell America’ again within a much broader global risk off,” Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central banking strategy at Evercore ISI, wrote in a note to clients.
I’m beginning to think Trump wants the entire North American Continent to be one Nation and that includes Greenland which is I believe part of the same Continental shelf. From Greenland to Central America all one open border Country which would probably also explain his “Canada 51st State” remarks. I believe Bush was hinting at the same thing back in 2005, the North American equivalent of the EU.
On the topic of as missile defence system, how can any Missile defence system defend against a Hypersonic missile? Not only is it travelling at insane speeds it also can change it’s Trajectory so you cannot anticipate the exact path to pinpoint where the missile will be and knock it out of the sky. The only thing that kept the world safe during the cold war was MAD, both nations had equivalent weapons so that was the deterrent. It appears (nobody probably really knows) that the US has fallen way behind in Hypersonic technology, that would really be the only deterrent against hypersonic technology. My uneducated guess would be the US should be putting their effort into equivalent Hypersonic deterrents instead of spending a Trillion dollars on a defence system that really probably wouldn’t work unless they have developed some sort of extremely powerful laser system that could knock the missiles out of the sky.
Trump can’t stay awake through a cabinet meeting and forecasts hurricane paths with a sharpie and his imagination, but here you are ascribing a grand geopolitical strategy to him! It’s an open question which one of you is more foolish in this case.
Trump does have a grand strategy. It’s not a geopolitical one though. It’s to further enrich himself and his family.
You can take the low road and mock people for an opinion or maybe open your mind and look at past History and speculate based on that what his Motivations are, stop being “Snarky”, just because people post opinions that upset you for some strange reason? Under no circumstance did I or do I approve of anything he is doing, I’m just trying to figure out where his mind is regardless if most think he’s acting unhinged. I know, it’s easy for many to get upset when someone suggests he may actually have a strategy regardless of how destructive it could be for International relationships. Again, I’m not suggesting the Strategy isn’t nuts so calm down.
Back in the early 2000’s there was allot of talk about Canada, Mexico and the US becoming 1 Country, they even suggested a Currency called the “Amero”. This was not just a flippant idea, Bush was pushing it and it has been bounced around by President’s in the past and possibly Trump has now become fixated on the idea and he believes that Greenland has to be part of that Union. He seems to want to distance the US from Europe, possibly become more Pacific focused against China?
His strategy is grift and distracting you from the Epstein files. You’re imagining 4d chess and he watches tv and plays golf. Your whole premise is absurd. I don’t know how to say it clearly enough for you to understand.
There is nothing behind the surface with Trump. It is pure greed and self interest. There is no strategy.
Yes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uujq5cUDvc&t=8s&pp=2AEIkAIB
“Back in the early 2000’s there was allot of talk about Canada, Mexico and the US becoming 1 Country”
There was more talk about the US being broken up into several separate republics, like Cascadia, Republic of California, Dumbfuckistan,etc
Trump is focused on developing tech to shoot down his opponents’ golf balls.
MAD depends on rational actors.
Ever played risk? No strategy makes any difference if one party is irrational and concerned only with “revenge”, even if it entails suicide.
These people all think they can win a nuclear exchange, have been philosophizing about first strike, escalate to de-escalate, low threshold nuclear weapons, missile shields, etc etc. Admiral Buchanan said in Nov 2024 that they were ready to execute and “win” a nuclear war. They think it’s all about the best narrative, and anything but a punch in the face is unlikely to dislodge the herd from its self-reinforcing reverie.
By the way, lasers require not only immense power, but clear dry skies.
The sad part is that many of the things that Trump is trying to accomplish (more domestic manufacturing, more secure critical materials supply, better defense in the Western Hemisphere, etc.) could have been accomplished relatively easily with some good leadership and cooperation with our former allies. But that isn’t Trump, he likes to order everyone around and stroke his ego. Definitely not the correct personality type for almost any situation not to mention his total ignorance of what actually makes the system work.
The West, especially the US, lost the knowhow of manufacturing, mining, defense when a generation of blue collar workers and engineers retired or soon retire. There are no professionals to teach and no teachable ones to learn.
AI says they , we, you won’t be needed….for anything, useless human eater, me included/s
hooey. we still manufacture a great deal. just don’t need many unschooled humans on assembly lines banging out hubcaps this century.
Interesting perspective. To compare, Biden got along with everyone including his prosecutor, but opened up the Southern border and then lied saying there was nothing he could do.
I’d rather have a few wins than zero, which unfortunately seems to be the only choices on the menu.
Gold at $4,732 & Silver at $95.
Humm just a thought. I wonder what someone like trump would do with knowledge of whos in the Epstein files.
We already know the answer to your question. Trump is in the Epstein files. He’s threatening to invade Greenland to distract from them.
I think he would use the knowledge of whos in the files to blackmail them.
He is in the Epstein files. Everyone knows it. Will he blackmail himself?
Anyone he tries to blackmail knows that Trump is as interested as they are in keeping the files secret. Trump’s name is so frequently mentioned in the files that nearly any leak will implicate him as well.
A more interesting question is, is he being blackmailed? It seems like he is trying to weaken America. Could that be on purpose, due to blackmail?
Let’s assume your fantasies are true. Why didn’t Biden release them? I know it’s asking a lot, but try thinking.
Because Biden was far less prone to interfere in the Justice department and he showed much greater propensity to support the classic idea of an independent Justice department.
The scenario is see is as follows:
There is no way $40 trillion (and growing) is ever going to get paid back so it’s a question of where in the timeline it happens and who it impacts. Don’t forget the social security and medicare liabilities are growing every day and will explode in 2030 when all the boomer hit 65+. It’s going to get real ugly in a few years.
Got exit strategy?
I understand that it’s your schtick, but no, the vast majority of Americans lack the means to leave the country. Besides, run and hide is hardly a real solution. And it sounds callow in contrast to the people in Minnesota who are out in the streets defending their communities.
We get it; you’re a runner.
“the vast majority of Americans lack the means to leave the country.”
Lol. Do you even understand the contradictory nature of your entire comment?
Let’s see. “ICE” is currently trying to deport millions of people. Most of who walked across a desert border with literally nothing but the clothes on their back but according to you most Americans don’t have the means. Who has the real courage in this story?
Run and hide is a perfectly valid solution, it’s what the majority of Americans are doing right now, they run and hide behind slogans, anti-immigrant stances, cliches, idiot politicians, and more. The fact that you don’t see that says more about you than me.
And Minnesota folks are getting their heads blown off and nothing will change until the clown in office is gone assuming he doesn’t find a way to cancel midterms and declare himself emperor. That’s the real threat right now beyond the ICE gestapo.
I wrote this comment a while ago, If I’m driving down a road and I see someone in need, I will stop and render aid. If I am driving down that same road and there are 5000+ people in need, I’ll keep going because there is nothing I can do. It’s common sense.
To be accurate, one head blown off.
Drone baby drone.
Hey whatever lets you sleep at night. I don’t buy it but people sell themselves on all kinds stories to make it easier to live with themselves.
Here are a few stories to read up on:
After you read those stories, you might see the pattern and ask yourself if you made the right decision. I’ll be sleeping very well, will you?
End of story.
We get it, you’re runner. I think you sound a bit hysterical and doomy but you do you! It will be people other than you who actually stand up to these clowns and defend their communities. You will be busy fleeing as you have mentioned repeatedly.
You know it bothers you that I am actually describing what your plan is in plain English. “Run and hide.”
Doesn’t bother me at all. What bothers me is that supposedly “smart” people who will put their families in danger over quasi-nationalist or quasi-patriotic reasons. When the gestapo comes for your family and hauls them away or shoots them right in front of you, I will feel sad for you and your family.
It will be doubly sad because you were warned and you did nothing. That’s truly tragic and it hurts my soul.
You have been warned.
Sure it bothers you! It sounds like cowardice, which on some level it plainly is. That’s why you’re resorting to the hysterical armchair history worrying about the Romans 2000 years ago, LOL. We’re supposed to be worried about collapse or something? The British, Germans, French, all of them tried holding foreign territory and then it fell apart, and their punishment? They remain among the most wealthy nations on the planet with standards of living higher than that here in the US. And the US doesn’t even hold foreign territory in any kind of similar way. In fact Empire is a stupid way to describe the US… it’s a federation of states, and none of them are headed anywhere. We’re headed for a midterm where Trump is going to get his ass handed to him. We’ve been in situations with similarly fucked up governance. We had the national guard murdering college students on college campuses 50 years ago over a hugely stupid and costly war in Vietnam. The president was a paranoid petty criminal. Inflation has gone nuts before, in many of our lifetimes even. The grown ups will get through this while you’re busy running and hiding and trying to rile up other people to similar avoidance.
Lol….quite a rant for someone who thinks it’s gonna be all cool. You are right on one account, the turning point will be the midterms. Let’s see what happens, it’s only 287 days away now.
287 days to have a plan, last warning.
‘last warning’. Call me when the shuttle lands.
Sure, I’ve stated before that any attempt to stop the midterm election would be a crossing the Rubicon moment.
I also think that Trump will discover that he doesn’t have enough pull with the system to meaningfully disrupt the midterms.
But if he does manage it, I’ll stop referring to you as being hysterical. I still won’t be running though.
blah, blah, blah. Same ‘ol MPO.
You are very mistaken on this.
No country that owes debt in its own currency ever defaults.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcTDY32tJbt8ndiP92Tpv1bI4tQ8tIs9rGfZGR3ogXW6hJ-m5pCsYvl81Qgk-JyRb_v-yLJfLBncCiUcQ3gFH0JpUsI5Z2wWk2qwDfQkY-UXcM3Q75OZTWnY2Q
Ganz recht!
not true. read “this time it’s different”. so many examples of this…….https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Yl24sUv9L._SL1500_.jpg
“Got exit strategy?”
That’s what cowardly Cubans like Rubio’s parents did. Then had an anchor baby they named Marco.
Speaking of Cubans, the most loyal Trumpers…
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/us/politics/cubans-florida-deportations-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F1A.lqzv.nFcNjekZPY2G&smid=url-share
oh the irony.
Heidy Sánchez took her 17-month-old daughter to a routine check-in last April with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa, Fla. During the appointment, federal authorities told her that she was being detained and that her husband should pick up their daughter, who was still breastfeeding.
Two days later, Ms. Sánchez, 44, who worked as a home health aide, was deported.
Ms. Sánchez’s story quickly spread across social media, in part because she is Cuban, a group that had long been treated differently than other immigrants, even when they entered the country illegally.
ha ha ha. MPO is correct. it is best to have a good plan with the balls to leave whenever one gets nervous. many people in world history would have been alive with the wisdom of MPO
I wonder how long it takes for a comment to get approval. I put one a while ago and it is still waiting to get approved.
You just want to air your laundry for all to see, or you’d respectfully DM him
I don’t have it.
The software on this blog flags some comments on the basis of a certain word or whatever. Once it does, your comment disappears.
Waiting to get approved means dev (con > nul)
Bessent disgusts me! I have listened to interviews with him long before he was “political.” This man was a serious, deep thinker, not a stooge like Christy Noem and Pam Bondi. So, I listen to Bessent now, and it infuriates me as he is demonstrating his corrupted character. The first sign of a corruptible character was his decision to accept the position of Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump.
Very much agreed. What’s disappointing is they sell there soles so cheaply. Or, at this rate maybe they just didn’t have much of one in the first place. Trump just twinkles a little “Power Bling” and it’s “SOLD!”; “Next up for sale we have …”.
Trump fluffers one and all.
Also, not discussed much is that these billionaire business owners, like Howard Lutnick, or, in Bessent’s case, hedge fund managers, must sell their holdings before taking these positions, and when they do, they get a special waiver of capital gains taxes. For a billionaire, that sweetheart deal solves a very challenging tax problem, and they end up saving 20% on the gains from the mandated sales. So, for these people, they only need to take the position; it does not matter how long they are in that position, and they benefit to the tune of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in tax waivers.
Given the level of graft in this administration is it that they are all getting some of the take and that makes it worth it? Bissent must know he will be thrown under the bus someday and it will be ugly.
See my comment above in this thread about the tax waiver they receive.
We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the world order and it can be hard to grasp.
At the end of WW2, in order to contain the existential threat represented by the USSR, the US put together a narrative of “an alliance of equals” amongst the liberal Western democracies. NATO, the IMF, World Bank, etc… were put in place and that alliance stood against Communist expansion coming from the East.
30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the current powers that be in the US (Miller, Bannon, Vought) decided that this narrative no longer had a purpose or served a function. Russia is an adversary, but it is definitely not an existential threat. If anything, Russia is quite ideologically aligned with the current administration. The only conflict is about spheres of influences. So since the old narrative no longer serves a purpose, it was past the time to scuttle it. There is no more “alliance of equals”, even on rhetoric. The administration views Europe as old, militarily weak, poor and technologically lagging, so it was time to put it in its place. It is back to “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
On the other hand the Western European countries, used to being the global historical protagonists since the 15th century, were caught completely flat footed by this drastic change of narrative. They now face the grim reality that they are relegated as mostly passive bystanders as the ruling global powers carve out the world in a new order of sphere of influences.
It is the last nail on the coffin of Fukuyama’s “the end of History”. Turns out that liberal western democracies were not the definitive victors of the global struggle and history rolls on inexorably.
Thanks for the very cogent assessment. However, the European allies are not the only ones caught flat-footed; so are most Americans. The majority of the electorate does not support what is happening. The reversal you speak of was not requested by the majority; it is an upheaval of a world order that has served Americans very well and continues to do so. This upheaval is being forced upon the world by a very small “Heritage Foundation” contingent and billionaire opportunists. So, we are witnessing the tyranny of the economic fringe and an ascendant U.S. oligarchy.
The US is currently too large for the oligarchs to handle on their own. They need to make it smaller.
There never was an existential threat emanating from the USSR.
By the way, how did WW2 even get started?
Do you think there were no capital flows and machinations?
The USA sailed into an occupation of Western Europe on the coat tails of the Soviet Union beating and driving back the Wehrmacht, and has never left (they only leave after defeats), trying to expand NATO and balkanize Russia. Europeans have never had any way and still don’t.
There is no hint of the USA pulling out of occupied Europe. The only metric is:
LIAR!
Do Trump and his minions ever tell the truth?
“The national emergency is to avoid a national emergency…” by creating an even larger international emergency.
But it is a national emergency. The reason for the Greenland deal is to build the Golden Dome missile defense system. But why do we need that? I am glad you asked. It is an act of desperation because US nuclear modernization is not going to happen in time, which means the existing legacy systems will soon come offline and shrink smaller and smaller. This is the upcoming national security crisis of survival that no one is talking about. The US is in very deep trouble.
And I have some orange flavor KoolAid for you to sell…
He sold it to himself already
“Fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity.” — George Patton, General of the US Seventh Army.
The iron dome around Israel failed last time Iran lobbed a barrage of missiles and that’s a tiny country. If you think some golden dome is going to protect the entire US, you’re very naive.
we don’t need t own Greenland to provide missile defense there. we have those all over europe already. should we on Poland too?
Russia has hypersonic missiles that can come form any direction, even from the South Pole. Such a strategy might have fit the world as of the end of the last century.
Russia can’t even take over the Ukraine. Those hypersonic missiles are just marketing for another massive overspend like Reagans Star Wars gift to the defense industry. Russia is a paper tiger with lots of oil, gas and other resources. We blew up their pipeline into Europe and they did nothing.
We bombed Iran and they did nothing.
Russia is nothing but a supplier of underage blond strippers to Trump and his fellow pederasts…
Great skiing near Sochi! What a fantastic place to live geographically, (politically? Not so much).
Bessent is not as big a moron as his role as Trump’s mouthpiece requires him to be; why doesn’t he leave? Why doesn’t he tell the truth?
Good judgement and decent morals are prerequisites for taking those actions
It has been said here thousands of times –
“What a show!”
“Got popcorn?”
“Got puts?”
“Got an exit strategy?”
“Trump owns this, I hold him personally responsible for every dollar lost in the market!”
So why is anyone hanging around this country?
I’ve been asking that question for a while now. But to be fair, lots of people that post comments here, even the pro MAGA ones, aren’t in the US anymore. Some are in France, some are in the Caribbean others in Asia or South America.
You can add me to the list at some point later this year. But PUTS have nothing to do with being in America or not. It’s a strategy to mitigate losses or earn profits on a correction or crash.
Some of us still have faith that the USA will be a great nation again after Trump’s wrecking ball is out to pasture. This might makes right bully escapade by Trump will be over one day, and decades later we can get things back in order, if we all work together.
Said Charlie to Lucy… yet again.
I gotta side with rando on this one. American people are quite unique in the world and like most people, they love their children and want a better world for them. Our present leadership does not understand what Henry Ford did. Pay a living wage and people will work and prosper, taking the economy up with them.
Crushing weaker people is easy. Lifting them up is the challenge that comes with normal morality.
Pederasts look at every child as an opportunity to exploit. If they get into political power they look at weaker countries to exploit.
Ask Trump and Epstein’s victims?????
Ask Greenlanders, Canadians, Iranians or all of the other nations Trump threatens.
But above all demand that congress turn over the unreacted Epstein files every day! Those files ARE The TELL!