There has never been a US president as openly money-hungry as Donald Trump, and there likely never will be. Even before he officially took office earlier this year, Trump was setting himself and his cronies on a path to untold riches. Less than a year into his second term, it has become very clear - if you want to understand what comes next, follow the money.
From crypto billions to golf courses around the world, the President is enriching himself by any means necessary. As the head of the world’s largest economy, Trump has found success in his public life in ways that he may never have dreamed of when running private businesses. As the dividing line between his duties to the American people and the use of power as a means to accrue wealth fades into obscurity, the Trump family has raked in billions this year, and their fathomless greed doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
Let’s take a look at some of Trump’s most-successful enterprises, and how he has used his role as Commander in Chief to extract wealth from the very citizens who elected him to the highest office in the land.
A Zero-Sum Game
There is very little left to distinguish the Trump family from an organized crime syndicate, other than their willingness to manipulate and engage in corruption for the public to see. From billions in ill-gotten gains on memecoins to billions in funding from the Middle East, it seems to be constantly raining money on everyone within the Trump circle. Even the President’s granddaughter, Kai Trump, has joined the party, launching her own clothing brand on the White House Lawn. All told, the Trump platoon has seen billions added to their already sizable fortunes, and Trump himself has nearly doubled his networth in recent years. Unfortunately for many Americans, the President’s means of enriching himself have extracted billions from the working class in a time when the top 1% owns a staggering $25 trillion in wealth and climbing. This is indicative of Trump’s mentality - life is a zero-sum game.
One of the most-shocking methods employed by Trump in the past year has been the use of his platform, TruthSocial, to spread damaging news concerning tariffs and the economy, resulting in some of the most-precipitous crashes in equity markets in history. In April, the US stock market lost trillions in value within days in the wake of his Liberation Day, during which the President announced obscene and nonsensical tariff rates on virtually all of America’s leading trading partners. However, behind the scenes, insiders were using the volatility caused by the President to siphon wealth from global investors - Trump himself revealed that some of the wealthiest men in America, like Charles Schwab, made billions in a single day by buying equities just hours before the announcement that the tariff deadlines would be extended, spurring on the stock market to rally an astonishing 10%.
Through it all, Trump seems invulnerable, and there has been little to speak of in terms of regulation by lawmakers and the judiciary of the President’s schemes. In fact, the President has even continued his effort to peddle his personal watch brand from the Oval Office as hundreds of thousands of government workers and members of the military have been placed on furlough or had their paychecks suspended as a result of the ongoing, and avoidable, government shutdown. The move is reminiscent of a criticism hurled at the President by his own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who, in a heated debate moment, claimed that Trump would be selling watches in Manhattan if he hadn’t inherited his father’s wealth. The lack of opposition has seemingly emboldened Trump and his circle of elites, and a shocking tariff announcement on Friday of last week was but the latest example of the ruling class’s disdain for the average Joe.
At approximately 5pm on October 10th, just after the stock market close, Trump took to TruthSocial to announce additional 100% tariffs on China, thrusting the market into panic. The crypto market, which has recently seen its valuation climb to $4.5 trillion amid global adoption by corporations and governments, saw a textbook case of insider trading, with $20 billion liquidated within minutes. Retail traders and crypto juggernauts alike watched on in horror as their money vanished and prices spiraled so steeply that leveraged positions plummeted past their stop losses, and traffic on major exchanges prevented investors from adding collateral or selling their coins. The crash was the single-largest in the history of crypto, a shocking revelation from an incredibly volatile market that has seen prices drop over 90% following ‘black swan’ events over the years, including the COVID crash, the FTX collapse, and the failure of the Terra-LUNA ecosystem.
The carnage didn’t stop there, however. With so many losing the entirety of their networth due to a single post by the President of the United States, stories of people looking to take their own lives in the hours following the crash consumed X. The threats weren’t idle, either - just one day after Trump’s cataclysmic announcement, crypto investor Konstantin Galish committed suicide after losing nearly $30 million overnight. This tragic story is a clear reminder that the President’s actions have severe consequences, but they seem to be borne almost exclusively by ordinary people.
The story doesn’t end there, either. Just minutes before Trump posted the announcement, on-chain data confirmed that an anonymous investor opened a massive short position against the crypto market, walking away with a $160 million profit within hours. Even more-dubious is the fact that Trump’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI) plunged more than 30% just before the announcement, a move that many experts believe is an indication that the mysterious whale was actually a member of the Trump circle leveraging his/her knowledge of the President’s plans to commit one of the greatest heists in the history of crypto. It is also clear that major exchanges that have already been found guilty of market manipulation, like Binance and Coinbase, were involved in the flash crash due its stunning precision and orchestration.
I will state it in plain English - the President is a dangerous, unstable crimelord whose erratic and inexplicable decision-making is ravaging America’s most-vulnerable classes in order to concentrate the nation’s wealth in the hands of a group of sycophantic sociopaths at the helm of America’s leading institutions, and no one, it seems, is doing anything to stop him.
No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Nobel Laureate and legendary economist Milton Friedman once distilled the wisdom of considering externalities of decisions in regard to the economy - ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ Essentially, Friedman was commenting on the potential costs of certain economic decisions, and that no decision comes without consequences, even if they may not be apparent from the outset. While the President shamelessly whined about not being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, Secretary of Defense and former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth announced a deeply troubling agreement with the Qatari government to install an air force base on US soil. Hegseth later clarified that the Qatari military would only be conducting training at the facility, which would remain under US control, drawing immediate criticism from some of Trump’s closest allies. The move comes just months after the President accepted a lavish, $400 million jet from the Qatari government (a clear violation of the Emoluments Clause) and inked a deal to build a luxury golf resort outside of Doha.
The time to mince words has long passed, and it is clear that the world is being held hostage economically by an unconscionable madman in the White House with a demonstrated history of breaking the law and trampling others to build his fortune, and, if we fail to act soon, there will be nothing left of America’s shrinking middle class. Trump and his team have already demonstrated their desire to run the American economy hot by ripping away critical guardrails as jobs disappear by the millions and American citizens struggle to afford groceries, homes, and education.
I would argue that, within the next 12 months, this conduct will lead the American economy into a crash reminiscent of the Great Depression, and will be the final step in an historic transfer of wealth from hardworking Americans to the unfathomably rich 1%. Not only will this result in suffering on a global scale as unemployment surges, personal debt skyrockets, and assets become unattainable to the average person, it will be the establishment of a New World Order in which the masses are subjugated by a literal handful of unscrupulous and amoral men.
If you want to know the next move when it comes to Trump’s rape of America (it won’t be his first), then just remember one simple rule - follow the money.
