A dynasty of wealth for themselves, hoarding it for their posterity

My Sunday viewing was Young Royals Forever, the behind the scenes look at the three seasons of the series. It starts with the auditions. Edvin Ryding and Omar Rudberg got the roles of Wilhelm and Simon because during auditions they were so physically free with each other. Then there are script reading sessions and shooting various scenes. The actors talk about their characters and how, since they were all so young, they became good friends. Ryding was 17 when he auditioned. They talked about how this was such a good representation of gay love. They got lots of fan mail, some from young people saying how it helped them come out. They appeared on Jimmy Fallon and were amazed at the crush of fans when they left the studio. And they talked about how they felt after filming the final scenes. I had mentioned that during the actual episodes it sounded like the actors spoke their lines in Swedish, then dubbed themselves in English (Netflix credits other actors for dubbing in other languages). During this behind the scenes look I wasn’t convinced the actors did their own dubbing, especially when they were in quite informal settings. But Netflix is so into jumping you to the next episode (or next show) I didn’t see a list of names for the dubbing (not that I would have recognized the Swedish word for that). This was enjoyable, but probably of no interest unless one has seen the series. And since it contains spoilers – such as the final scenes – it should be watched afterward. Charles Jay of the Daily Kos community wrote about the nasty guy as Bible salesman. As part of that Jay included a few examples from movies in which the Bible salesman is a con artist. An aspect of the con is low income people being asked to pay the high price for the Bibles when it can be gotten for much cheaper, or free, through reputable sources. Jay also has a few quotes from liberal Protestant theologian Jim Wallis, writing in The Daily Beast, on how the nasty guy’s actions contradict the words of Jesus. Jay ends with some words from Pastor and Senator Rafael Warnock of Georgia:

The Bible does not need Donald Trump’s endorsement. It’s a risky bet because the folks who buy those Bibles might actually open them up, where it says things like thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness, where it warns about wolves dressed up in sheep’s clothing. “I think you ought to be careful. This is risky business for somebody like Donald Trump.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos reports that the nasty guy posted the $175 million bond for his New York civil fraud case. That puts a hold on the $454 million judgment against him and allows him to proceed on appeal. Arguments for the appeal are scheduled for September. I’ve noticed a post or two on this: Tenacious12 of the Kos community shared reporting from CBS and Newsweek that say the bond isn’t as sound as New York law requires it to be. There’s some questionable stuff here. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported:

Many of the billionaires who claimed they were “sorry” they voted for Donald Trump in 2020, supported other Republican primary candidates this past year, and denounced Trump’s attempted insurrection are all being wooed back to the MAGA fold, according to a new report from The Washington Post. ... According to the Post, this is all due to the Biden administration’s very popular stance that the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes—a position he hammered once again during his recent State of the Union address. Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, told the Post, “The billionaire class is really threatened by Biden: These guys are about creating a dynasty of wealth for themselves, and hoarding it for their posterity, at the expense of everyone else in society.”

I had written the nasty guy’s Truth Social site had started trading stock and the price jumped up a lot. It appeared to be a chance for the nasty guy to sell high and to suck money from his base, who were the only ones buying the stock and sending the price up. Well, perhaps he missed his chance. News Corpse posted an article on Kos reporting that this week the price dropped significantly (which would be before the nasty guy could sell high). The nasty guy isn’t allowed to pull out his bounty (supposedly about $6 billion at one point) for six months without approval of the compamy’s board, which includes a son and other supporters. If the board did give the waiver it would open board members to lawsuits from all the other shareholders. And if the nasty guy sold the stock price would plummet. It plummeted anyway because the company issued a financial statement. That statement says the company is on very shaky ground. And a lot of news sources are reporting on that shakiness. Kos of Kos examined that financial statement to show how bad it is. He wrote that a lot of MAGA suckers are about to lose a lot of money. The stock dropped, but is still overpriced. Annieli of the Kos community started with a screen capture of the stock on Nasdaq. This article then compared the stock to the meme stock craze, where influencers promoted a stock to disrupt short sellers. This stock could also be a part of a “pump and dump” scheme, in which a person owns a stock and through misleading positive statements boosts the price so he can sell it at a higher price. This is illegal. Horst deWurmer of the Kos community says the company doesn’t need to make a lot of money.

DJT (as I’ll now call the company, after it’s ticker symbol), isn’t a real company. It has no real revenue, and never will. ... The key attribute of DJT is that it’s publicly traded. Trump can sell a bunch of shares, and whichever foreign autocrat needs a favor from him can swoop in and buys those shares. No sneaky, backroom dealing required. It will take place out in plain sight. In fact, that’s required. As the major shareholder and officer of DJT, Trump must issue a formal announcement whenever he’s intending to sell some of his shares. Which, in his case, is kind of like taking out an ad proclaiming, Who Wants to Get on My Good Side? Now’s Your Chance! Sure, DJT’s stock has no actual value. That only matters to real investors, like pension funds and mutual fund companies. The people buying DJT stock will be buying a piece of Donald Trump — almost literally.

This may not help the nasty guy in his current situation. Part of that is because the stock was supposed to launch a year ago.

But not everything is about the short term. Should Trump actually gain reelection the scheme could still pay off spectacularly. Let those Wall Street analysts snicker. The Chinese, the Saudis, the Emirates, and of course the Russians will be lining up to buy shares of DJT — and its owner.

Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported:

Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation. ... But Trump Media almost did not make it to the merger after regulators opened a securities investigation into the merger in 2021 and caused the company to burn through cash at an extraordinary rate as it waited to get the green light for its stock market debut.

The lengthy article goes through the evidence for that statement. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos, working from and quoting an article from the Associated Press, reported that the nasty guy is suing the co-founders of the parent company. His suit claims they mishandled the attempt to take it public, putting the offering “on ice” for more than a year and a half. I wonder, is this the time the company was propped up by money launderers? Pennyfarthing then discussed how frequently the nasty guy sued people he did business with. If he hasn’t set the record for the person involved in the most lawsuits he’s pretty close. Ruben Bolling of Kos Comics posted another of his Tom the Dancing Bug comics. This shows the “Law & Order Victimless Crime Unit.” Other Republicans like to say the nasty guy’s business fraud case (the one that fined him almost a half billion) isn’t an issue because it is a “victimless crime.” What about a guy that voted 20 times, but since it didn’t change the outcome of the election we should declare it “victimless”? Or the illegal immigrant that took a job no American wanted, isn’t that a beneficial crime and the immigrant should be thanked? And an insurrection that failed, isn’t that victimless? (To the police who injured in the attack, it wasn’t.) Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed the nasty guy’s continued use of violent language and has suffered no consequences. Last week the nasty guy shared a video that included an image of Biden bound and gagged. National security experts responded immediately, talking about how swiftly Secret Service responds to those who make threats to the president. The nasty guy’s campaign shrugged off the issue. The article implies that the Secret Service hasn’t responded in this case. If that’s true, why? Is this another case of letting an issue slide because the perpetrator is the nasty guy? Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos that is a takeoff of the famous Michelangelo painting of God touching the finger of Adam. In this version Adam is replaced by the nasty guy and he says to the person touching his finger, “And you are…?” In the comments of a pundit roundup by Chitown Kev, for Kos is a cartoon by Christother Weyant. It shows a science class with the sun, moon, and earth aligned. The teacher asks, “Who knows what’s the name of the big event coming up that will cast America into darkness?” A student responds, “Trump’s second term?” Back to one of the articles Kev quoted. It is by Derek Thomson of The Atlantic. The article notes churches have been crucial to civic engagement. But with the decline of religion and church attendance what will that do for America? Other places that anchor community life, such as libraries, school gyms, and union halls are also closing. How do we build community?

Imagine, by analogy, a parallel universe where Americans suddenly gave up on sit-down restaurants. In surveys, they named many reasonable motivations for their abstinence: the expense, the overuse of salt and sugar and butter, the temptation to drink alcohol. As restaurants disappeared by the hundreds, some mourned their closure, while others said it simply didn’t matter. After all, there were still plenty of ways for people to feed themselves. Over time, however, Americans as a group never found another social activity to replace their dining-out time. They saw less of one another with each passing decade. Sociologists noted that the demise of restaurants had correlated with a rise in aloneness, just as the CDC noticed an increase in anxiety and depression.

Joan McCarter of Kos noted that the average full time worker has put in 63 work days so far this year compared to only 43 days the House has been in session. And, given their schedule for the rest of the year, the House will be in session for 124 days while the usual employee will work 230 days. And many of those scheduled days are actually half because they tend not to get started until Monday afternoon and work Friday only in the morning. All that is just another indication how little this House has accomplished. And how little they deserve to get another two years of power. For many months the group No Labels has been trying to run a “unity” ticket of candidates for president and vice president from different parties. Political analysts were afraid the effort would draw votes from one candidate or the other, influencing who won. Kaili Joy Gray of Kos reported that No Labels, after asking a lot of people, has concluded no one wants to be their candidate. So they are halting their effort. Niraj Warikoo of the Detroit Free Press reported that Rev. Chris Yaw of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Southfield, Michigan has several pieces of art near his office created from gun parts. Yaw has said gun violence is something the church needs to address. So he and his congregation have held two gun buyback sessions that collected 350 guns in exchange for gift certificates from local stores. The line of cars was two miles long. Michigan State Police actually handled the guns and said they would destroy all guns. But Yaw learned, GunBusters, the group contracted to destroy the guns, actually planned to sell them. Yaw was outraged. He worked with the MSP used a different group to make sure the guns were pulverized into scrap metal. In 2008 the Episcopal Church of the Messiah started a Silence the Violence campaign. It expanded into seven other Michigan cities last year and fourteen this year. Many of these will include gun buyback programs. All good. I’ve been saving this cartoon for about six weeks, waiting to link it to a discussion on guns. This one is by Garth German and it is captioned “The only way to stop a bad guy with a venomous snake is a good guy with a venomous snake.” It shows a group of people, each with a snake around their neck. One says “Now we’re safe.” In the front of the group a woman’s snake bites the arm of the man next to her. On the side a snake says, “What a stupid country.”