• blady_blah@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Okay, here’s my conspiracy theory…

    Now let’s say you’re Trump and the supreme Court has said it’s just about impossible to convict somebody of corruption in the US. You see that you’re going to be elected president and your goal is to figure out how to make a crap ton of money off being present. Now you can do the boring old s make dignitaries stay at your hotel thing or have foreign governments. Give Jared kushner a bunch of money… But that’s all pocket change. If you’re president, you can crash the economy. If you know a bunch of Rich Russian oligarchs who can short the market and you can tell them exactly when the market will crash then they can make billions… And you can get your cut too.

    This is why Trump doesn’t really give a shit why the tariffs are in place. That’s why he makes up bullshit answers when asked why the tariffs are implemented. He doesn’t care. … But he really really really wants to yank the market around. First he says tariffs happening, then he says they’re not, then they’re happening again. Every time the market goes up and down he can make a shit ton of money if he can accurately predict when it goes up or down.

    I can’t get this idea out of my head. It makes more sense than anything else I can come up with. There’s so much money to be made if you have the power to yank around the u.s. economy and enough narcissism to not give a shit about the people hurt in the process.

    • 10001110101@lemm.ee
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      14 hours ago

      Yeah, I think it’s either this, or the tariffs are extortion (announce tariffs, then solicit bribes from businesses and politicians). Could be both as well.

    • SaffronDovovan@lemmy.ca
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      17 hours ago

      Exactly what I have been thinking. I should have scrolled down and read your comment before I made mine

    • isar@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      What I’m wondering when reading such theories is: does money matter all that much to these people? Like when you’re 80+ years old and a billionaire I don’t see what the end game there is, unless it’s just an uncle Scrooge attitude but I still find it a bit hard to believe. I think that in order to become a billionaire you need to be seriously driven by something more than 0s - maybe power, influence or attention.

      • Slartibartfast@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        You’ve got to step back a little to understand.

        The key thing is that it is not possible (excluding inheritance) to become a billionaire without being a scheming psychopathic cut-throat selfish person and having a determined drive to have power over others.

        The second key is it’s not possible to keep your billions without being a psychopath. This because you could never possibly spend that money in your lifetime and the only way to have accumulated it is through exploitation of labour.

        So it’s a thing you don’t need that you got via abusing others. They want power and they don’t care how they get it. They have no plan beyond that. Personally I think it’s mental health issues and the fact that we allow this in our flawed system.

        • shneancy@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          it’s not just allowed it’s encouraged, in fact i’d go as far as to say it’s the only way to “win” in this system

        • MooseyMoose@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          It’s not wealth hoarding, it’s wealth OBSTRUCTION as a means to control everyone. It’s pathological fo sho.

      • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Logically you would think the answer should be that money shouldn’t matter much, but it always seems to. It’s still a way of keeping score and a proxy for power. They’ve always longed for more money/power and as they get older and their brain slows down, they don’t suddenly change. What old billionaire have you seen says “you know what? I’m going to give everyone raises! I don’t need more money! We should all be happy together!” (Almost) never happens. They want more and more and more… and then they die.

    • beejboytyson@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      That was my idea. These jarring and quickly implemented money drainers only really help ppl outside the market.