The fact that Trump is corrupt for (relatively) small sums tells us lots about his personality but hardly proves that he's not corrupt. Moreover, if you're treating "corruption" as relative, then "relative to other US presidents and politicians" Trump's corruption is shocking.
It's amazing to the extent to which Trump's corruption is entirely a non-issue in the election. This is partly understandable given the corruption of the Hunter Biden-Joe Biden clan, so no one talks about it. There is a natural confluence of interest in both parties keeping mum about the issue of Presidential corruption. Grotesque.
We have a "credit" money system. If someone pays off the US debt, the way Michael Tucker saves Mickey Rourke's life by picking up his bad gambling debts in "Diner," that person would own all of the outstanding Treasury obligations. (Tucker expected to recoup his money by putting Rourke to work for him.) Those obligations are assets. The buyer would be just as rich as he was before buying the debt. What if the buyer simply burned all those purchased Treasuries? That's absurd. The private sector would have that much LESS wealth--or even a cascade of shrinking wealth if those Treasuries were collateral for other loans. The idea that U.S. taxpayers drag around a millstone called "the debt"--the way an individual is weighed down by a giant credit card balance--and that we'd all be economically healthier if we paid it off--is not accurate. A person who buys a Treasury bond with dollars is not a penny less wealthy for buying the bond. She's just a shade less liquid. The Chinese buy Treasuries with dollars we paid them for goods; i.e., they traded those dollars for our interest-bearing, risk-free liabilities. The US has a very big, two-sided balance sheet. Shrinking it (deleveraging) would make the economy smaller. We're divided partly because people believe that the government confiscates taxes from one person and gives the money to someone less deserving. That's a fallacy. The government issues debt and dollars simultaneously. This double-entry system allows dollars to be spent (or loaned by banks) into existence, and taxed or repaid out of existence. The question that CNN and CBS love to ask Democrats--"Where will you get the money to pay for that?"--shows their mistaken belief that the government is like a person, vis-a-vis money, and that dollars, like matter, can't be created or destroyed. When your IOUs are universally accepted as money, as Uncle Sam's are, you have ipso facto uncapped spending power (which nonetheless must have a sinking fund, financed with tax revenue, or it loses credibility). That's how we fight chronic wars, bail out too-big-to-fail banks, and finance hurricane recovery with such magical fluidity. For better or worse, that's the secret of our country's wealth and power. Alexander Hamilton set it up that way. As for Trump, his wealth may be bounded but his danger to the country isn't.
Great piece. Question: "The entire triad - overt networking, minor payments and relentless outrage - is symptomatic of our moment. The casualty, is the kind of self-confident sharing of a legitimate order of privilege and hierarchy that defines an actually existing hegemony." Can you give examples of when this kind of stable hegemonic order existed in the US? Or does it still exist but is no longer as "self-confident" and the cracks are getting bigger? Just trying to put this in context ...
If when set against the high-stakes “norms” of hegemony’s top players, trump represents a mere petty distortion, the question still needs to be asked: do not the players with whom “trump-clan” wheels and deals—and the real physical tortures practiced by them against any notable dissent (Khashoggi, Navalny provide examples)—provide a source of some legitimate concern to people who, well, like me for instance, still hold lines of moral sensibility within and against a world that is threatening to “homogenize” the Midas-touched financialization of the human soul?
lol . Trump inherited a lot of money and merely expanded the wealth. Not surprising. He actually doesn’t need corruption to further enrich himself. He just needs to keep the compounding going. Now look at the other hand of “corruption”. Obama was relatively poor. He is well on his way to becoming a billionaire - real estate no less. Mrs. Clinton- a very middle class upbringing. FOUNDATIONS is her rent seeking choice of wealth. Influence peddling . Speech making. Millions, billions of donations. Pay the daughter millions for a management fee. That’s the way to do it. Biden and son- on the take for a long time. Strange how the Tooze doesn’t talk about this much. Must be on the take. A captive mind.
But Trump didn’t really “expand” the $ given to him as a tax dodge. He would be wealthier had he just put it all into decent-yielding bank accounts and gone golfing. The net result of all his striving and bankruptcies and convicted frauds (bogus university, foundation, family biz, etc etc) has been financially embarrassing. He’s not only corrupt but incompetent. On the west coast he tried to become a presence but the major money all said No, as he was seen as completely untrustworthy and not very sharp. Thus the unprecedented swamp of shady characters, ever more of them convicted felons, disbarred, etc, he has had to work with.
(None of the others you allege have been convicted of anything other than Biden Jr’s silly tax mess, even despite big investigations. But nice try!).
One thing you miss is that America is a meritocracy in the sense that someone like Bill Clinton can go to the top. He didn't come from wealth or family political connections. America is full of outliers who come from almost nowhere and climb up. Very rarely do they established long term dynasties. Anyone hear from the Roosevelts lately?
As for Trump being corrupt. Well of course. So were the Kennedy's and just about everyone else. See Nancy Pelosi and Insider trading. See Congress and insider trading. It's akin to saying he's a narcissist with the implication that others like Obama are not. They all are. Some are better at hiding it but they all are. When Newt got rid of Earmarks (which are back) the D's didn't like it. The R's didn't like it either but pretended they did.
Everyone excuses the corruption and narcissism of people on their side. and make a big deal of the others. Sort of like Communists being horrified of what the Nazi's did.
The main difference with Trump is you don't have to wait until he's been dead for 50 years to find out. Agains see Kennedy's, Roosevelt, Johnson, fillintheblank. It's front loading rather than back loading.
I think one of the reasons he stays in Real Estate, is because there he's a big fish. Most RE competitors are small. Trumps attempts to "go big" and "branch out" are a history of bankruptcies.
I think the second reason he's avoided a scalable business, or partnering with a scalable business is that he's fundamentally untrustworthy. I don't think legitimate companies have much desire to take the risks working with Trump offers.
Perhaps it is interesting to note Trump's new seeming alliance with a portion of Silicon Valley that poses as a group of hustlers permanently alienated (they would say freed) from normal channels and habits of legitimacy (complete with plenty of quasi-Nietzschean will-to-power outsider philosophical posturing--viz, Thiel and Andreeson) while simultaneously playing, aspirationally and, insofar as they share in AI development, possibly in reality, for the very highest stakes.
On Trump, it seems to me entirely believable that "this kind of petty, mafia underboss stuff" is exactly what makes him tick. Perhaps especially if one combines it with reality-TV showmanship.
Team R and Team D both are oligarch parties, just one is the party of the PMC, of publicly trademultinationals and those who serve them, the other is the party of Local Gentry and their retainers.
The fact that Trump is corrupt for (relatively) small sums tells us lots about his personality but hardly proves that he's not corrupt. Moreover, if you're treating "corruption" as relative, then "relative to other US presidents and politicians" Trump's corruption is shocking.
It's amazing to the extent to which Trump's corruption is entirely a non-issue in the election. This is partly understandable given the corruption of the Hunter Biden-Joe Biden clan, so no one talks about it. There is a natural confluence of interest in both parties keeping mum about the issue of Presidential corruption. Grotesque.
We have a "credit" money system. If someone pays off the US debt, the way Michael Tucker saves Mickey Rourke's life by picking up his bad gambling debts in "Diner," that person would own all of the outstanding Treasury obligations. (Tucker expected to recoup his money by putting Rourke to work for him.) Those obligations are assets. The buyer would be just as rich as he was before buying the debt. What if the buyer simply burned all those purchased Treasuries? That's absurd. The private sector would have that much LESS wealth--or even a cascade of shrinking wealth if those Treasuries were collateral for other loans. The idea that U.S. taxpayers drag around a millstone called "the debt"--the way an individual is weighed down by a giant credit card balance--and that we'd all be economically healthier if we paid it off--is not accurate. A person who buys a Treasury bond with dollars is not a penny less wealthy for buying the bond. She's just a shade less liquid. The Chinese buy Treasuries with dollars we paid them for goods; i.e., they traded those dollars for our interest-bearing, risk-free liabilities. The US has a very big, two-sided balance sheet. Shrinking it (deleveraging) would make the economy smaller. We're divided partly because people believe that the government confiscates taxes from one person and gives the money to someone less deserving. That's a fallacy. The government issues debt and dollars simultaneously. This double-entry system allows dollars to be spent (or loaned by banks) into existence, and taxed or repaid out of existence. The question that CNN and CBS love to ask Democrats--"Where will you get the money to pay for that?"--shows their mistaken belief that the government is like a person, vis-a-vis money, and that dollars, like matter, can't be created or destroyed. When your IOUs are universally accepted as money, as Uncle Sam's are, you have ipso facto uncapped spending power (which nonetheless must have a sinking fund, financed with tax revenue, or it loses credibility). That's how we fight chronic wars, bail out too-big-to-fail banks, and finance hurricane recovery with such magical fluidity. For better or worse, that's the secret of our country's wealth and power. Alexander Hamilton set it up that way. As for Trump, his wealth may be bounded but his danger to the country isn't.
Great piece. Question: "The entire triad - overt networking, minor payments and relentless outrage - is symptomatic of our moment. The casualty, is the kind of self-confident sharing of a legitimate order of privilege and hierarchy that defines an actually existing hegemony." Can you give examples of when this kind of stable hegemonic order existed in the US? Or does it still exist but is no longer as "self-confident" and the cracks are getting bigger? Just trying to put this in context ...
The Homogenization of Hegemony.
If when set against the high-stakes “norms” of hegemony’s top players, trump represents a mere petty distortion, the question still needs to be asked: do not the players with whom “trump-clan” wheels and deals—and the real physical tortures practiced by them against any notable dissent (Khashoggi, Navalny provide examples)—provide a source of some legitimate concern to people who, well, like me for instance, still hold lines of moral sensibility within and against a world that is threatening to “homogenize” the Midas-touched financialization of the human soul?
lol . Trump inherited a lot of money and merely expanded the wealth. Not surprising. He actually doesn’t need corruption to further enrich himself. He just needs to keep the compounding going. Now look at the other hand of “corruption”. Obama was relatively poor. He is well on his way to becoming a billionaire - real estate no less. Mrs. Clinton- a very middle class upbringing. FOUNDATIONS is her rent seeking choice of wealth. Influence peddling . Speech making. Millions, billions of donations. Pay the daughter millions for a management fee. That’s the way to do it. Biden and son- on the take for a long time. Strange how the Tooze doesn’t talk about this much. Must be on the take. A captive mind.
But Trump didn’t really “expand” the $ given to him as a tax dodge. He would be wealthier had he just put it all into decent-yielding bank accounts and gone golfing. The net result of all his striving and bankruptcies and convicted frauds (bogus university, foundation, family biz, etc etc) has been financially embarrassing. He’s not only corrupt but incompetent. On the west coast he tried to become a presence but the major money all said No, as he was seen as completely untrustworthy and not very sharp. Thus the unprecedented swamp of shady characters, ever more of them convicted felons, disbarred, etc, he has had to work with.
(None of the others you allege have been convicted of anything other than Biden Jr’s silly tax mess, even despite big investigations. But nice try!).
One thing you miss is that America is a meritocracy in the sense that someone like Bill Clinton can go to the top. He didn't come from wealth or family political connections. America is full of outliers who come from almost nowhere and climb up. Very rarely do they established long term dynasties. Anyone hear from the Roosevelts lately?
As for Trump being corrupt. Well of course. So were the Kennedy's and just about everyone else. See Nancy Pelosi and Insider trading. See Congress and insider trading. It's akin to saying he's a narcissist with the implication that others like Obama are not. They all are. Some are better at hiding it but they all are. When Newt got rid of Earmarks (which are back) the D's didn't like it. The R's didn't like it either but pretended they did.
Everyone excuses the corruption and narcissism of people on their side. and make a big deal of the others. Sort of like Communists being horrified of what the Nazi's did.
The main difference with Trump is you don't have to wait until he's been dead for 50 years to find out. Agains see Kennedy's, Roosevelt, Johnson, fillintheblank. It's front loading rather than back loading.
I think one of the reasons he stays in Real Estate, is because there he's a big fish. Most RE competitors are small. Trumps attempts to "go big" and "branch out" are a history of bankruptcies.
I think the second reason he's avoided a scalable business, or partnering with a scalable business is that he's fundamentally untrustworthy. I don't think legitimate companies have much desire to take the risks working with Trump offers.
Perhaps it is interesting to note Trump's new seeming alliance with a portion of Silicon Valley that poses as a group of hustlers permanently alienated (they would say freed) from normal channels and habits of legitimacy (complete with plenty of quasi-Nietzschean will-to-power outsider philosophical posturing--viz, Thiel and Andreeson) while simultaneously playing, aspirationally and, insofar as they share in AI development, possibly in reality, for the very highest stakes.
On Trump, it seems to me entirely believable that "this kind of petty, mafia underboss stuff" is exactly what makes him tick. Perhaps especially if one combines it with reality-TV showmanship.
No other politician could possibly survive $580 million in wildly dubious New York State lawfare judgements. So who is corrupt?
Team R and Team D both are oligarch parties, just one is the party of the PMC, of publicly trademultinationals and those who serve them, the other is the party of Local Gentry and their retainers.