5 ms·

I don't pretend to know their playbook. All I can see are the visible actions on the surface and try to infer from that what the underlying rationale and strat

I don't pretend to know their playbook. All I can see are the visible actions on the surface and try to infer from that what the underlying rationale and strategy are. But if a new regime took control in another nation and did everything the Red Hats have done, you could infer that they had a coherent strategy that explains their actions. When the stated rationale for an action like tariffs doesn't make sense (preventing fentanyl from Canada?), the reason it doesn't make sense is not that the action itself is "dumb", it's because the stated rationale for the action is bogus. So they're doing tariffs for a reason and they're hiding the real reason. If you're on the inside and know the real story, you win. If you're on the outside and keep believing their stories and thinking they're just ignorant, you lose. Then you see the largest physical movement of gold into the US in decades, and now you guess that insiders are already positioning themselves for what's coming. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-31/jpmorgan-plans-4-billion-gold-delivery-in-us-amid-tariff-fears https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-31/jpmorgan-... If it takes a hoard of gold to protect yourself, then what's coming is not good. The last one to figure out the real strategy will be left holding the bag of devalued dollars and repudiated Treasury paper.

thiht 2y ago
After the first 4 years of Trump you should have understood there’s no deeper plan than "let’s destroy shit and burn bridges", because it’s too woke or too socialist or whatever. Trump is not a genius posing as a dumbass, he’s just a dumbass. He wanted to nuke a hurricane ffs.
- georgemcbay 2y ago
  Personally I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of the vast conspiracy and your take on it. I agree with your take on Trump, its just that I don't believe he's the one running the show this time. Watching his EO signing bonanza it was pretty obvious he had no clue what like half of them were and was just rubber stamping other people's plans. The more interesting aspect is which faction of the people that are handling Trump (the heritage foundation folks or the techbros) will end up on top because I don't think their interests are aligned beyond the short term.
- chudstudley 2y ago
  > he’s just a dumbass. Which is precisely the point. In a plutocracy, a monarch serves at the behest of the plutocrats. He is the CEO and they are the Board of Directors over the country. Trump doesn't need to be smart, he just needs to have sway over the single-party Management, which he does. The "destroy shit and burn bridges" is the job of Management, who ensures the security of investments made by the Board. What the comment above you is pointing out is that major banks are stockpiling gold likely because a major crash is around the corner. Now, what they haven't said is that these current events are actually a part of the NRx (Neo-reactionary) manifesto proposed by Curtis Yarvin at BIL in 2012. Yarvin's playbook served as a major piece of the guiding philosophy behind Project 2025. People like Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and yes Elon Musk, have all been taking notes from Yarvin's proposals for a hard-reset on the U.S. government. Even DOGE is an implementation of Yarvin's RAGE (Retire All Government Employees). Likely, the plan is to sunset the FDIC (another New-Deal safeguard that slows corporate gains) and replace the ACH with with a new and private system backed by plutocratic investment. In order to do this, the plutocrats must take control of the Treasury's payment systems, and the FBI must be neutered to prevent investigation into this. These two things are happening now. Next, the economy must be destabilized in order to set the precedent for either legislature or emergency powers that dissolve the FDIC and reroute ACH transfers through the new system (likely Musk's X). This destabilization is what the tariffs are for. When all forms of cash-flow are under plutocratic control, it becomes very unlikely that domestic funds could be raised to oppose them, no matter how politically or socially motivated the masses may be. Elections can even continue if the people want, but the funds won't make it to the opposition, the news of that won't make it to the majority of the general populace, and there won't be an organization that is able to investigate why. Trump doesn't need to know or understand any of this, however. All he needs to do is sign off on what the Board of Plutocrats tell him to. Whether they can actually pull off this switch-over is the real question. The top 10% of the U.S. controls 60% of it's wealth, and 813 of it's 345,000,000 people are billionaires. You and I aren't rich enough to do anything but wait and see what happens. But hey, in a couple centuries, Rome will spit in two again, so there's that at least.
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    I think you're wrong. Not on on the oligarchs attempting to rule, that much is obvious. It's that the oligarchs we have are extremely stupid. Elon Musk has exposed how little he knows about anything multiple times, and the same goes for the other billionaires attempting to wrest control. They're attempting to follow a children's playbook as if it was an engineering manual for how to become kings. I think they will absolutely crash the economy, but I don't think the plutocrats will survive or be able to pick up the pieces. As I've mentioned before, Romans already figured this out. Bread and circuses. But the plutocrats are not willing to maintain the flow of bread, nor are they willing to create circuses. They aren't even willing to follow the typical fascist playbook of empowering the military and bribing them off with additional benefits and loot. This kind of situation can only lead down two roads if they keep attempting a smash and grab hostile takeover: Either a American-style French Revolution or a military coup.

thiht 2y ago

After the first 4 years of Trump you should have understood there’s no deeper plan than "let’s destroy shit and burn bridges", because it’s too woke or too socialist or whatever. Trump is not a genius posing as a dumbass, he’s just a dumbass. He wanted to nuke a hurricane ffs.

georgemcbay 2y ago
Personally I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of the vast conspiracy and your take on it. I agree with your take on Trump, its just that I don't believe he's the one running the show this time. Watching his EO signing bonanza it was pretty obvious he had no clue what like half of them were and was just rubber stamping other people's plans. The more interesting aspect is which faction of the people that are handling Trump (the heritage foundation folks or the techbros) will end up on top because I don't think their interests are aligned beyond the short term.
chudstudley 2y ago
> he’s just a dumbass. Which is precisely the point. In a plutocracy, a monarch serves at the behest of the plutocrats. He is the CEO and they are the Board of Directors over the country. Trump doesn't need to be smart, he just needs to have sway over the single-party Management, which he does. The "destroy shit and burn bridges" is the job of Management, who ensures the security of investments made by the Board. What the comment above you is pointing out is that major banks are stockpiling gold likely because a major crash is around the corner. Now, what they haven't said is that these current events are actually a part of the NRx (Neo-reactionary) manifesto proposed by Curtis Yarvin at BIL in 2012. Yarvin's playbook served as a major piece of the guiding philosophy behind Project 2025. People like Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and yes Elon Musk, have all been taking notes from Yarvin's proposals for a hard-reset on the U.S. government. Even DOGE is an implementation of Yarvin's RAGE (Retire All Government Employees). Likely, the plan is to sunset the FDIC (another New-Deal safeguard that slows corporate gains) and replace the ACH with with a new and private system backed by plutocratic investment. In order to do this, the plutocrats must take control of the Treasury's payment systems, and the FBI must be neutered to prevent investigation into this. These two things are happening now. Next, the economy must be destabilized in order to set the precedent for either legislature or emergency powers that dissolve the FDIC and reroute ACH transfers through the new system (likely Musk's X). This destabilization is what the tariffs are for. When all forms of cash-flow are under plutocratic control, it becomes very unlikely that domestic funds could be raised to oppose them, no matter how politically or socially motivated the masses may be. Elections can even continue if the people want, but the funds won't make it to the opposition, the news of that won't make it to the majority of the general populace, and there won't be an organization that is able to investigate why. Trump doesn't need to know or understand any of this, however. All he needs to do is sign off on what the Board of Plutocrats tell him to. Whether they can actually pull off this switch-over is the real question. The top 10% of the U.S. controls 60% of it's wealth, and 813 of it's 345,000,000 people are billionaires. You and I aren't rich enough to do anything but wait and see what happens. But hey, in a couple centuries, Rome will spit in two again, so there's that at least.
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  I think you're wrong. Not on on the oligarchs attempting to rule, that much is obvious. It's that the oligarchs we have are extremely stupid. Elon Musk has exposed how little he knows about anything multiple times, and the same goes for the other billionaires attempting to wrest control. They're attempting to follow a children's playbook as if it was an engineering manual for how to become kings. I think they will absolutely crash the economy, but I don't think the plutocrats will survive or be able to pick up the pieces. As I've mentioned before, Romans already figured this out. Bread and circuses. But the plutocrats are not willing to maintain the flow of bread, nor are they willing to create circuses. They aren't even willing to follow the typical fascist playbook of empowering the military and bribing them off with additional benefits and loot. This kind of situation can only lead down two roads if they keep attempting a smash and grab hostile takeover: Either a American-style French Revolution or a military coup.