Day: February 5, 2025

A Sovereign Wealth Fund?

Yet another brilliant idea from the hand of Lord High Destroyer.

The magic pen is at work again for the Orange con man of Wharton….this time he has created a sovereign wealth fund for the US….

President Trump signed an executive order Monday to create a national sovereign wealth fund, which could be used for the US to acquire a stake in TikTok. More than 100 countries have such funds, which act as national investment funds, controlling a total of more than $8 trillion in assets, the Guardian reports. “Other countries have sovereign wealth funds. They’re much smaller countries. They’re not the United States,” Trump said Monday. “We’re going to be doing something, perhaps, with TikTok. Perhaps not.” Trump said the fund could also be used to pay for government investments in infrastructure.

At least 20 states have their own sovereign wealth funds, with Alaska’s the largest at more than $80 billion. Trump’s order directs the Treasury and Commerce departments to take steps toward setting up the fund, Politico reports. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it could be formed within 12 months. He said the plan is to monetize assets owned by the US government “for the American people.” Trump has said he wants the US to hold a 50% stake in TikTok when its US business gets new ownership, and the fund “could be among the cleanest ways of giving the US a stake in the company without nationalizing it,” the Hill reports.

Trump didn’t offer details on how the fund would be financed. Sovereign wealth funds typically receive a government’s surplus as a “nest egg” for its citizens, reports Reuters, but the federal government hasn’t had a budget surplus since 2001. “Given the United States’ track record, a proposal that relies on hypothetical future budget surpluses is unrealistic,” experts at the Center for Global Development said last month. Officials in the Biden administration also discussed setting up a sovereign wealth fund.

This smells….it may sound good on the surface but deep down there is something else going on….

But just what is SWF?

There is an official definition of a sovereign wealth fund, written by sovereign wealth funds themselves in 2008 and published in Appendix I of the Santiago Principles. In short, this defines sovereign wealth funds as having three key characteristics:

  1. A sovereign wealth fund is owned by the general government, which includes both central government and sub-national governments.
  2. Includes investments in foreign financial assets.
  3. They invest for financial objectives.

These key elements exclude:

  • Public pension funds, which are ultimately owned by the underlying policy holders.
  • Central bank reserve assets, which are not invested.

But are these funds all they are cracked up to be?

One drawback of SWF is that, although expected, returns are not guaranteed. Exchange rates might be negatively impacted by a decline in SWF as well. Mismanagement of assets might happen due to the lack of transparency in some SWFs….And because SWFs are usually completely under the control of governments, they can be used to pursue purely political goals. Moreover, SWFs often have no fiduciary responsibilities or minimal reporting obligations, making it difficult to understand where a country’s money is invested.

There is the key to this proposal/EO……

What is the motive behind this?

I smell a con yet again…the lack of adequate transparency fits well into the Trump style of management(?)

He is going to bankrupt this country even worse than the 2 party system…..

And you dullards voted for this tool.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

In The Shadow Of Andrew Jackson

Time again for the old professor to drop some history on my readers….today’s talk centers around the 1830s and what was to be known as the Trail of Tears…..for those that have no idea….

Guided by policies favored by President Andrew Jackson, who led the country from 1828 to 1837, the Trail of Tears (1837 to 1839) was the forced westward migration of American Indian tribes from the South and Southeast. Land grabs threatened tribes throughout the South and Southeast in the early 1800s. Across the United States, the Federal Government consolidated and relocated tribes to reservations forcing them to surrender their lands in pieces by negotiating one treaty after another with the tribes. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, the impetus for the Trail of Tears, targeted particularly the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southeast. As authorized by the Indian Removal Act, the Federal Government negotiated treaties aimed at clearing Indian-occupied land for white settlers. The Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole were among the resettled tribes.

(nps.gov)

Then after all the tribes were gone the US sod the stolen land to white settlers….

I bring up this painful but mostly forgotten piece of American History because one of Trump’s idiotic proposals….his idea smacks of Jackson’s policies….

President Trump on Thursday insisted Jordan and Egypt will take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza despite fierce objections from the two Arab nations.

Trump’s recent suggestion to “clean out” Gaza of its Palestinian population and send them to Jordan and Egypt raised fears that the US may support the ethnic cleansing of the territory, but his idea was met with quick rejection from Amman and Cairo and the wider Arab world.

When asked on Thursday about the Egyptian and Jordanian response to his proposal, Trump said, “They will do it. They will do it. They’re gonna do it, okay? We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it.”

Trump’s calls to remove Palestinians from Gaza were welcomed by the more hardline elements of the Israeli government who are openly in favor of ethnic cleansing and the establishment of Jewish settlements, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said he’s working to make Trump’s vision a reality.

Smotrich and others frame their desire for ethnic cleansing as “voluntary migration,” but the Israeli military campaign has left most of Gaza uninhabitable. Some media reports have said the Trump administration is discussing the idea of “temporarily” relocating Gaza residents during reconstruction, but many would likely be hesitant to leave over fears Israel wouldn’t let them back.

So is this yet another hair brain scheme to help Israel expand its burgeoning empire?

While writing this post more on this situation appears….

Trump said wants the U.S. to empty the Gaza strip of its nearly two million inhabitants, and develop it like a property owner. In fact he said he wanted the U.S. to “own it” and did not rule out sending our troops to get the job done. Here’s the video.

President Trump doubled down on his remarks about “cleaning out” Palestinians from Gaza ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday. Trump told reporters at the White House that he wants Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians, the New York Times reports. “They have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump said, adding that the resettlement could be permanent. “It is a big pile of rubble right now,” Trump said of Gaza. “I don’t know how they could want to stay. It’s a demolition site. It’s a pure demolition site.”

CNN reports that Trump asked, “Why would they want to return?” and ignored a reporter who cried out, “Because it’s their home.” “I think we need another location,” Trump said, per the AP. “I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy. You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza.” Asked if he was still committed to his 2020 plan that called for a Palestinian state, Trump said, “Well, a lot of plans change with time.”

Last month, the leaders of Egypt and Jordan “flatly rejected” Trump’s call for them to take in more Palestinians, the AP notes. After Trump’s latest remarks, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the United Nations said world leaders should respect people’s desire to remain in Gaza. “Our homeland is our homeland, if part of it is destroyed, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people selected the choice to return to it,” Riyad Mansour said, per the Times of Israel. “And I think that leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.”

And then the ‘stable genius’ from Wharton made is biggest POS….

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we’ll do a job with it too,” Trump said at a news conference with Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.” The BBC reports that the remarks “elicited several gasps from reporters.”

Trump pledged to “create an economic development that will supply an unlimited number of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” Politico reports. Asked about the US controlling Gaza for an extended period, Trump said, “I do see a long-term ownership position,” per the AP. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land,” he added. He said the US could send troops to the area if necessary. Trump said a redeveloped Gaza could look like the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Last year, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, said, “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable.”

Trump said “Palestinians, mostly” would live in the redeveloped Gaza, but it would be “an international, unbelievable place” that would attract “the world’s people,” the AP reports. Netanyahu praised the idea as “something that can change history” and said Trump is
“the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.” The New York Times reports that pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the White House, chanting “Donald Trump belongs in jail” and “Palestine is not for sale.”

Seriously?

The last time US troops got involved in this area it did not end well….just ask Reagan….oh wait you cannot for he is dead.

No matter how you try to cut it it is still the same thing that Jackson did….the theft of land.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”